A whole new month...

So...it's November already. Huh.

I'm sorry...I wish I had something more riveting to post about than the ridiculously obvious pronouncement of the date. However. I don't.

Well, wait. Maybe...

....

Um...nope.

Maybe just a few random notes...

Random Note #1: I may be too old to do road trips across the state and back, within 24 hours, that involve staying awake the whole time and driving through the night. In fact, this could account for my current lack of focus in this blog post.

Random Note #2: The oldest child, our son in the Marines, was just home to visit the past nine days. He hasn't lived here in over five years, so it is always startling to me how much fuller the house feels when he IS here and then again how there suddenly feels like there is a huge, quiet void when he's gone.

Random Note #3: Sunday afternoon naps are one of life's treasures. Seven-hour long Sunday afternoon naps are probably too much of a good thing and likely will not bode well for going to bed tonight. (Why did I take a seven hour nap? See RN #1)

Random Note #4: I wish I could read the minds of my teenagers sometimes. It is likely good that I can't, but still, it might make things easier on occasion if I could.

Random Note #5: Socktoberfest came and went without me finishing either of my pairs of socks I was working on. Zombie sock #2 will likely be finished soon, but this year's Mystery Sock pair came to a grinding halt at the same point as last year's pair...in the foot section of the first sock. Gah. Hopefully I'll manage to finish them up by the end of November, though, and not wait until next year, like I did with last year's pair. I really could use a couple pair of new socks!

Random Note #6: I have to have surgery in a couple of weeks. Really, it is more of a procedure than actual surgery to my way of thinking, but the doctor keeps referring to it as surgery. And I have to have pre-op blood work and tests done. So I guess it is surgery. I wasn't all that freaked out about it until they started calling it surgery, but now I would like to just ignore it and hope it goes away. And, while I'm not an overly superstitious person, I have to wonder what I was thinking to have scheduled it for Friday the 13th. :::sigh::: What is irking me more than anything about the whole thing, though, is that I've been informed I'll need to take at least two weeks off from the gym afterward. Not happy about that. At all. :P

Random Note #7: I am tired, in every sense of the word. The past couple weeks have just sapped me, though I'm not entirely sure why. Too many things to do and too many things on my mind. But hey! It is November! A new month! My calendar is blessedly open compared to the past two months, so I'm really hoping for some time of rejuvenation. I could use it.

Because I have no new knitting to show you...

...I'm still working on the same two pairs of socks, which don't look much different right now, and I have made no progress on the girlie's vest -- I thought I'd at least post some pictures of yarn. And the dog. Yarn first.

I've been really, really good about not adding to the stash lately, other than yarn I've spun (which I haven't done any spinning real recently either...sigh...). My main exception has been my membership in Three Irish Girls' Pick of the Knitter monthly yarn club. I love Sharon's yarns soooo much. I'm into my third three-month subscription now, and I can't stop. If you're looking for a yarn club to join, check it out. I think there's a waiting list for it at this point, but it's worth it.

Anyway, my most recent PotK yarnie goodness...

Seacoast and Sandcastle in the Adorn yarnbase...these are club-only colorways, though!

To further illuminate how good I've been about adding new yarn to my life, I should point out that I have not placed an order with The Loopy Ewe since APRIL. Seriously! Can you believe it? I know! Well, ok...I hadn't placed an order since April until last week, when I broke down and bought this...

Tempted Yarns, Festival of Lights colorway. As soon as I saw it, I envisioned a snowflake motif shawl or wrap...if only I could find the perfect pattern for such a thing!

and this...

Fiberphile, Batwings colorway...love that name! LOL I'm going to use this for the sock pattern I've been designing. Really wanted a nice brown for it. I think this will do well.

and a cool hat pattern from Born to Knit (I rarely ever buy hat patterns, but this one was too cool to pass up as it features a dragon!) But hey...I had a $25 gift credit sitting there...since April! So it was almost like not buying anything really. :} (Yes, Rationalizations R Us. Problem?)

The other thing that kept me from adding to the stash in recent months was just avoiding the LYS. Yeah. Funny that. If you don't go to a yarn store, you don't tend to buy yarn. But, a couple weeks ago, I had to go there because I needed a couple pair of needles (I know, unbelievable that I was lacking needles, trust me, but I don't have huge numbers of 16" circs, and I needed two sizes that I didn't have...not that I've actually started the project I needed them for yet, but that's beside the point). Of course, I had to take a spin around the shop and check out the yarn while I was there. I was so good, though. I picked up nothing. Until. I came to the sale bin, and there was an entire cubby full of this:

Now, if you're like me, you'll probably think, "That colorway is kind of...ugly." LOL Seriously, neon purple and brown and a pukey yellow...it is such an odd combo of colors and it in no way screams "yum" to me like so many Malabrigo colorways do. But, see, THAT was the challenge. I thought a yarn that looks this ugly surely will knit up to be a surprise and delight! I must try and see what I get! So I bought two hanks of it, and, well...we'll see. (As I was checking out, the person ringing me up asked what my plans were for this yarn...and I told her my theory...and then it dawned on me that maybe it is not considered polite to tell LYS salespeople that their yarn is ugly, even if there is a whole bin of it in the discount area, which pretty much says to me that I'm probably not the only person who thought it was ugly. But, you know... :})

Ok. Now, doggie photos!

Hi! I'm cute!

Why is she sitting me in this pile of crunchy stuff?

I'm not so sure about this...

But maybe I can eat it. Blech. Or not.

I'm so, so, so...

...glad this wish did not come true!

Temps in the 30s and 40s with lots of rain? Perfect fiber festival weather -- NOT! Yikes.

God bless y'all who are wandering around up there this weekend! :}

Muffin

Meet Muffin...

...the newest member of our family...

...she's a 3 year old Miniature Schnauzer...

...and she spent all but the last two weeks of those three years as a breeding dog in a puppy mill. :(

I'll be honest...I've never thought of myself as a dog person. I've always liked dogs more in theory than in practice. However, over the past year, the idea of getting a dog has been one I've batted around more and more. The kids had brought it up a lot, and I kept putting them off. But then we'd go over to the nearby park and see all of the people and their dogs and I realized...I wanted to be a dog person.

So I started scoping out the Petfinder.com listings now and then in the past few months. If we were going to get a dog, it needed to be a small dog that would remain small. I preferred for it to be female and not a puppy. Short hair was also a preference due to Chris's allergies. I thought maybe a Yorkie or a Maltese would be nice, but I never found one that really struck me as right for us. And then last week I did a search for mini schnauzers...my grandmother had one of these dogs when I was a kid, and I loved that dog! She was great. And so I searched and suddenly -- there was Muffin. I don't know why, but I knew she was the right one.

We're basically doing a crash course, learn-as-we-go, of how to deal with a puppy mill survivor. It's clear that patience is going to be key as she learns to trust us and learns what it is to be loved and to be part of a family. Surprisingly, she loves to be held, loves to cuddle. She's slept each night in my daughter's bed. After spending her first full day here mostly sleeping, she finally has begun exploring her new world today, and she finally started to eat as well. Pottying...well...that's going to take time, but we'll deal.

Last evening, I was the only one in the room with her and she was looking around for the kids. I called to her, as we're trying to get her used to her name, and for the first time, she came over to me on her own. It might seem like a simple thing, but I think for her, it is a big, big thing...it was a sign to me that Muffin is going to be ok.

And so now I find myself wiping doggie paws after we've been outside, and calling my daughter from the pet store to have her measure Muffin so I could buy a little jacket to help keep her warm when we go out to do the potty thing. And I find my heart just oozing and melting when this little face comes over to me and wants to be picked up.

My God, I think I am turning into a dog person after all. :}

I wish, I wish, I wish...

...I was going to Rhinebeck this weekend.

But I'm not.

Sad. :(

:::sigh:::

Looking ahead...

While I am still deep in the throes of Socktoberfest, I am looking ahead to November and have decided, after a two year hiatus, I am going to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.

30 days.

50,000 words.

I've done it twice before.

2004 & 2006.

Can I do it again?

We shall see!

Fast week...

I'll tell you what...time needs to slow down just a tad! September flew by, and now October is following suit! What's the hurry??

Last week was a blur of good things. My mom and step-dad were in town for a week, and while I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with my mom as I'd have liked, it was nice to get to visit with them here for a change (instead of us going to Florida).

Sadly, I took very few photos from my mom's visit. This is one of them. Mom, Ralph and Emma.

Last weekend was also the local Apple & Arts Festival, which Kevin and the kids always take part in (I go up for a few hours and walk around...they do the work!).

The shingle mill, where Kevin (on the right) spends most of his time at the festival.

Amid the visiting and the fall festivities, I tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy with regard to our school work, the gym and our fencing/climbing days, though everything got modified to accommodate the extra activities. One thing that was a constant throughout, though, was the knitting. I am working away on my socks, both the Zombies and the Mystery Socks for the Soctoberfest KAL. Also making some progress on the girlie's sweater, but mostly it's the socks that have my attention right now.

Lest I bore you with any more chatter, how about some pictures? (And warning -- there will be another picture of the mystery sock in this bunch, so don't look at the last photo if you don't want to see it!)

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #1: apples. Half of this bag has already been cooked and used in a pie. Yum.

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #2: freshly ground grains; in the jars there is whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour and cornmeal. I love using this stuff! So fresh and good! It all needs to be kept refrigerated or frozen since there are no preservatives in any of it, thus I put some in the jars and some in vacuum packages to use over time.

Apple & Arts Festival purchase #3: I usually don't purchase much in the line of the "arts" that are offered at these festivals anymore, both because I don't really need any more crap in my life and also because most of it is pretty country-themed, and I am not much of a country-themed person at this point in my life. Pottery, however, always calls to me. I found these buttons at the only pottery vendor at the festival...they're kind of quirky. Bigger than buttons I'd usually buy, but I thought they'd be neat to use one at a time for buttoned neck warmers or something. More than that and they'd get pretty heavy.

The Zombie lives and is coming along quite nicely! It's actually a couple more inches up the leg at this point. And look! I turned my first toe-up heel...

A gusset heel, it was very easy to do. I ended up with a little gap at the top of each heel where I rejoined the stitches in the round to the instep, but I think I know how to avoid that on the second sock. I'll just stitch these up to close them when I'm done.

And finally...the mystery sock. Clue #2 finished on the first one...

What a crazy-pretty sock this is turning out to be! It looks even lovelier from the side view, but both of those that I look on the sock blocker turned out blurry. Will try again later.

Oh, and though I have no pictures of the evening (or at least none that turned out well on my cell phone), my friend Angela and I spent a very loud night last Saturday at the Social Distortion concert, which was awesome. Totally love their music. (I will say, though, either I'm getting old, the acoustics of the Ches-a-rena leave something to be desired, or the people working the sound for the two opening bands were on crack because it was painfully loud at points, like I thought my ear drums might explode -- and that's saying something, live music lover that I am, the louder the better. But not so much in this case.)

Lastly...our VoaT photoblog is focusing on the theme "Small" this week. Tomorrow is the last day for it, as a new theme will start on Sunday. Stop by and visit! :)