Yes!! We Have Crabs!! (And Seahorses, too!!)

Excuse me for using up my month's allotment of exclamation points all in one post. I'm really excited - I've finally made some progress on my "Creatures of the Reef" shawl. I finished the Crabs and Seahorses section, and I finished the Bubbles section that goes above it. I'm starting the Starfish chart now. Yes!! The stitches are decreasing, which helps move things along a little faster. I admit, I was not feeling the love while working on this shawl. However, that's changed. Nothing like a little progress to help my affection along. Makes me feel less like the World's Slowest Knitter.

I think having a few days off from work has helped, both attitude-wise and knitting-wise. It's been nice to do something other than sleep or work. Although it hasn't been all play this week. I've had some serious house-cleaning to do, and one of my older sons had his tonsils out this week. At his age, this surgery comes with a fair amount of risks, so I'm keeping an eye on him, and trying to help him be comfortable.

And, to make things even better, we have been having some beautiful weather. I've turned off the central air and opened the windows, much to the delight of our cats. Around here, the minute a window opens, there are several cats trying to cram themselves in it. It's not unusual to see a couple of cats stacked up on each other in the window, trying to make use of a small amount of space. What's more common is territorial disputes over limited window real estate. This picture was taken around 7 am, with the sun coming up through the trees. It was 72 degrees, with no humidity, and it felt like heaven. From left to right C.J., Muffin, and her brother, Alex. It looked like a cowcat convention.


Yarn diet? What's that? I've seen other blogs with these cute little tickers announcing how long it's been since yarn was bought. Um. Unfortunately, there has been no yarn diet (or for that matter, diet of
any sort) over here at chez Knitting at Night. While trolling ebay for my latest obsession, Vera Bradley,
I came across some Dalegarn in colors I was looking for. I have a few sweaters in mind from my Dale books, and this yarn was perfect. Now, all I need is the same yarn in Barn Red, and I'm good to go. I see that in the picture of the Dale yarn, there appears to be a large grey tail. That belongs to my official yarn inspector, Gremlin. His picture appears elsewhere on this blog. Gremmie loves getting into everything. Wherever I am, he's there too, usually yelling his head off. For a cat, he has a lot to say. There was also the little matter of the Lorna's Laces in Icehouse, Cool, and the Cherry Tree Hill in Tropical Storm. So, can you tell my favorite colors are blues, purples, and greens?




As an addendum to this post: getting this effing post up was one of the most aggravating experiences of my life. I kept getting messages that my frickin' links were incorrect. I finally deleted all of them, and then put them back in the post, republishing between each one, to figure out what was wrong. Nothing, apparantly. They all went up fine the second time around. Grrrrr.

Oh, I almost forgot. Last, but not least - the Saturday Sky photo. Taken in my front yard around 4:15, of a lovely blue sky. Haven't seen too much of that lately. By the way, if anyone could tell me how to put up the Saturday Sky button without hotlinking to Sandy, I'd love to hear it. I appear to be somewhat challenged in this respect.