MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Just a couple of pictures from today.......

Miscellaneous pictures, since you're looking......

Have you seen this one? Do you recognize your cousins?? This was sometime in July. Since I gave you a bad winter picture of Rudy, I thought I'd give you a good summer one too!
And the final picture, again from last July. Mom at 70!!

SNOW!!

Yep, we've got some snow! This first picture was at about 5 am when I took the dog out. You can just barely see his brown spots through the snow! It was almost all the way up to his stomach! Later in the day when I went to shovel out the truck. We got somewhere around 10 inches of snow, so I'm not even going to try to get my little car out--I'll just take the truck!
And this is the snow in front of my house. It's hard to tell how deep it is, but there's plenty of it!

Yep, we've got ourselves some white fluffy stuff!

sshhhh--what I really did on my summer vacation.....

Knit, knit, knit!! A friend went with us, so a few times I just stayed back in the cabin while the guys went out to fish, and I knit! Actually I also read and typed recipes into the new recipe/cookbook software I got just before I left, but knitting was the primary vacation activity. This red and yellow pair was completed the day before we went on vacation, but I thought I'd post them here anyway. They were for a swap, so I sent them off just before we left.
These are cable socks knit in Cascade 220 superwash. They are also for a swap and my swap partner said she liked bright colors. When I saw this color it reminded me of dreamsicles, so I got it and call these the "Dreamsicle Socks". You can't see it very well, but I got orange reinforcing thread that's carried at both toes and heels so it has a sort of tweedy or heathered look there. I finshed these on vacation and mailed them out.

This is my Sockapalooza 4 sock completed while on vacation. So, when I finished the socks and held them up for the "TaDa" moment I found that I had knit one longer than the other--WHAT?? Yep, I knit 18 rounds of ribbing on one and 12 rounds of ribbing on the other. UGH! They had a picot cast on with 2 rounds of non-ribbing knitting at the top, so I couldn't just pick up stitches and knit 6 more rows on the top. I thought about it, and the only real way I could fix it was to frog the entire sock and start again. So, I packaged them up with a note saying they could be worn with pants, she could fold down the ribbing, or just maybe she has one leg shorter than the other one (LOL), and sent them off to my Sockapalooza pal--no-one but God is perfect!
This was the "no brainer" sock I worked on while I was riding in the back seat of the truck, and while we were fishing when things got dull and my fish weren't biting. I say they're no-brainer just because they're plain jane with very little patterning and I don't need to carry around a pattern or anything complicated. I can just pick them up & put them down whenever I have a minute or two to knit. Not much progress on these.

And, you really can't see what it is very well, but I started the Mystery Stole #3. I joined this KAL on the very last day, and I just got my yarn right before I left, so Clues 1-3 had been given and I hadn't even started. So, I took this along too. But I ended up fishing more than I had anticipated and I needed to get those socks done for the swaps so I could get them in the mail, so I really didn't get a lot of knitting done on this. I did get through Chart A and well into Chart B of Clue 1. I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr in Curry with Topaz beads. It will be beautiful!!

All in all a very nice vacation--fishing, knitting, reading, eating (fish, of course!), and beautiful weather--something for everyone!

What I did on my summer vacation......

Fish, fish and fish some more! Just about every year we go to northern Wisconsin for a week or so to fish. This year we caught 155 fish, mostly crappie, bluegill & lake perch, but we caught 4 nice smallmouth bass, one largemouth bass and one northern. Caught lots more baby fish that weren't "keepers". The weather was fine and we had a good time!

Me and my big catch - a 14" smallmouth bass

My husband & his big catch, an 18" smallmouth bass.

Just one more picture, then I'm done for the day. I'm an early-morning person, so I see some spectacular sunrises on my way to work. This doesn't capture the moment, but you can see some of the colors in the sky as the sun is just coming up on the hazy horizon over a midwestern cornfield (or maybe bean field, I don't know). What you can't see is the little drops of dew on everything and you can't feel the warmth & moisture in the air or smell the freshness. We don't stop to appreciate these mornings too often in our busy life, so I thought I'd share one with you!

More pictures! This is the apron I got from my MJF apron swap partner, Susan. Pretty cute, huh?!! I think she called this a Cinderella apron because it had the little patches on it. She did so much detailed hand sewing on this! I just love it, and Rudy does too! Thanks Susan!!

Pictures, we've got pictures!! Well, where shall we start? How about in the garden? I'm not a gardener. I had a plant at work that one of my co-workers would water for me when it looked like it was on it's last leg. One day she said, "You say you have children, but we haven't seen them in quite a while, and if you care for them anything like you care for this plant, then, well......." Suffice it to say that my children are grown and on their own now and that plant is long dead & gone! But look at what's going on now in my gardening world!

The daylily is a transplant from my mom & dad's garden and the african violets are on my desk at work. I've also got ten herb pots going, two different types of lavendar and several annuals. We transplanted hostas, irises and lily of the valley last year, and they've all done just wonderfully this year! When we drive up to our house, we joke that it is a "park-like setting" since for once all the flowers, trees and yes, even the grass seem to be doing well.