Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

I will likely be busy tomorrow doing nothing other than fixing food and eating said food, as well as reading, knitting, watching TV and movies. So that I don't have to interrupt my laziness plan, I wanted to send Happy Thanksgiving wishes to all of you and yours. I hope you celebrate however you most enjoy it, and that you are able to be happy for all that you have.

Enjoy your day, and thank you for being here. 💖

Cozy Season

If you are anything at all like me - and I'm guessing since a lot of us (all of us?) are knitters, makers, crafters, whatever - you love being cozy. And here in the U.S. this is peak cozy season if you ask me. And it is The. Best.

We had a lovely weekend - nothing too much of anything, but just nice. The Tim finished his flooring project (well, I think he did. At least for now ...), and I managed to switch my summer clothes for warmer, cozier cold-weather clothes. We pretty much stayed put, venturing out to go around the corner to the market, to pick up prescriptions, etc. We watched two football games where our teams won (Notre Dame! Eagles!), and just listened to music, read, knit - I'm sure you are getting the idea by now. 😊

Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about my dad. He died 55 years ago yesterday, and it's one of the great ironies of life that someone who was even more of a holiday person than I am died the Monday before Thanksgiving the year that he died. I still think of him all the time, but yesterday I really felt him there. He would have enjoyed the kind of weekend we had.

I think I've mentioned here at least one hundred times that I have an ongoing text chain with my friend Lisa and my niece Amanda, where we update our progress with walking and exercise, share recipes, jokes, etc., and also set the world straight. Well, in the last few years, we have all posted daily gratitudes during November. And today mine was gratitude for having my father with me for 13 years of my life. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but I'm so glad I got at least that much time. And in some ways, maybe it was for the best - we never had time to argue about things, fight over things teens and adults do, etc. I sort of feel like I got the best of our time together.

This will be a busy week, probably for most of us in the U.S. as we prepare for Thanksgiving - the coziest holiday EVER! Today I have some cleaning I want to do. Tomorrow I have my volunteer gig with the kitties in the morning, and then in the afternoon I'll finish up with putting some things away. Wednesday morning I have a haircut appt in the morning, and my last physical therapy session in the afternoon. Then in the evening, I'll put together our stuffing for Thursday. Which is of course the big day. I'm hoping that The Tim will not have to work this year. And then on Friday, I'm getting my Covid vaccine first thing in the morning. So I have plenty going on, but it's all good stuff.

What about you? I hope that all of you had a good weekend, and are ready for a good week leading to the holiday. I hope you and yours have safe travels, if you fall into that category. I know how stressful that can be - we used to travel every year for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and were fortunate because nothing really terrible ever happened. But I know until you arrive to your destination and then arrive back home, it can be exhausting. So take care, and do the best you can. 

And enjoy what I think is probably the coziest week of the year. 💖

Five Favorites for This Friday

I think it's time for another post of things that made me happy over the past week. I know it's getting into an extra busy time of year for a lot of you, so this is your reminder to hold on to the things that make you happy, make you laugh, let you feel like yourself no matter what else is happening.

1. I sent off the Advent calendar to my great-niece and great-nephew, once I found things to stuff into the teeny tiny stockings. It ended up being a combination of "penny" candy from a store here called Five Below, a variety of very tiny ornaments I came across at Target, some of the 50-cent and dollar coins that The Tim's mother had kept, and then for the 24th day, a ten dollar bill for each of them. I know it was safely received, since my niece texted me. She said she is hiding it until they return from their trip home for Thanksgiving, so that even if they "decimate" it, it will happen during December. 😊

2. Weather that is matching the season! It's been cool at last here, feeling legitimately like fall. Yesterday and today have been rainy, which is also fine because a) it's cozy, and b) we really need any rain we can get. 

3. The floors on our first floor. We have random-width pine floors throughout the house, dating from when it was built, which was sometime before 1850. We've had a large rug covering most of the first floor since we moved in, and recently sent that out to be cleaned. In the meantime, The Tim has cleaned and polished the floors all over that level of the house, and it is so pleasing to see them looking so nice. When we bought our house, it was largely because we were completely drawn in by the floors, and they look better than they have for a long time.

4. I have been able to eat and drink whatever I want since my colonoscopy is over! It's not that I am stuffing my face 24/7, but just that it's nice if I decided to have an apple that I can do just that. The prep last week was bad enough, but the day of my procedure, my appointment was for 2 p.m. and I wasn't allowed to even have water after 5 a.m. I would been willing to mow down a group of kindergartners for a glass of water by the time I was leaving!

5. My knitting has pleased me this week. It made me happy to see how thrilled The Tim was with his replacement sock, which really didn't take that long to knit once I actually got it going. 

And do you remember a few weeks back, I showed you the beginning of my first ever two-color yoked sweater?

Well, I've continued working on it, and as of today, I have 15 rounds left on the patterned part before I get to just knit and knit and knit until it's an FO. And though there are parts that are wonky, I'm really pleased with how it looks now:

 

It still takes me a LONG time to get through each round, because even though it's not as slow as when I started, I'm still slow with both colors AND the chart. But as they say, slow and steady wins the race. Well, not that it's a race, but ... you know what I mean!

So what has made you feel good this week? I hope you can come up with at least a few things. 

This weekend I'm hoping to get things more organized - between things being all over the place while The Tim was working on floors, and being in the throes of switching summer clothes for winter clothes, things are distressingly messy in our house at the moment. So I'm hoping to get it all under some kind of better control. We're also going to figure out our Thanksgiving menu, so we can make sure we have the ingredients on hand. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving (as usual), but also as usual, am surprised it's almost here!

Whatever your plans, I hope you have a weekend that agrees with you. Take care and I'll check in again next week.

Pleasing

We had a lovely evening celebrating The Tim's birthday. He enjoyed all of his gifts, and was truly thrilled to receive the second sock to complete his pair of house socks. I had wrapped them in a couple of layers, where the older sock was on top. So when he opened it, he said, "Are you giving this back because you can't find the yarn to make the other one?" and then was surprised and pleased when he dug down to the next layer. So it was a success.

There are a couple of other things that have been pleasing, and I thought I'd share. Do you remember that last spring, the city planted a honey locust tree (aka "Loco") where a previous tree in front of our house had been? Well, Loco has been thriving. And last Saturday, it was time for us to get another tree, at the other entrance to our house (which is technically the main entrance). This time it is an American Hornbeam ("Beamy), and we are so happy with it! 

(The Tim: Oh good, it's a dormant tree. I was wondering why they would plant a new tree when cold weather was coming.

Me (in my brain): Brilliant deduction, Holmes.)

I'm so glad to have a tree in that spot, because the street is so small, and having a tree there must makes it all seem cozier, you know?

On Monday, I headed to Anthropologie. I had seen something online that I thought would make a nice gift; it was out of stock online, but it said, "Check stores." Our store did have it in stock, but in person, I didn't like it as much. However, I found something else that I liked even better for less money. But even better was the gift box they provided:

I had noticed on my way into the store that they had some yarn trees decorating the windows along with shiny ornaments, etc., so I guess they have a whole yarn/knitting thing going on for the holiday season this year. It goes without saying that I think it's an excellent idea!😊

So there you have two small but good things that really pleased me over the past week or so. It's a good reminder to pay attention, because even when a lot of other things seem to be terrible, disheartening, etc., there are still some little, lovely, happy things happening around you if you just look.

FO Post: The Hofo Sock

Hello there! Well, I survived both the prep and the colonoscopy, and I do have some pathology results to expect in the next week or so, but that is taken care of for now, and boy am I glad. I just hope the pathology report shows nothing worrisome, because I want to just be finished with the whole thing for another three years (three years! Last time I had only two, so that in itself is an improvement). But please know that I did truly appreciate your supportive and kind comments about surviving the prep. It's nice to know that people understand when someone is just plain uncomfortable.

ANYWAY.

When I was a kid, one of the jokes that at first puzzled me, and later pleased me because of wordplay, was this one:

Q: When is a door not a door?

A: When it's ajar.

And so, for this FO post, I have a similar question for you:

Q: When is a HO (half-finished object) not a HO?

A: When it's an FO.

Project: The Hofo Sock

Pattern: Plain vanilla sock pattern that I keep in my brain.

Yarn: Plymouth Worsted Encore Solids. The light blue is the Denim colorway, and the green is - you guessed it - the Kelly Green colorway!

Needles: US size 5/3.75 mm

Notes: In 2020, I knit these for The Tim. And he wore them. A lot. Until the sole of one of them wore completely through. So he handed the other one to me, and said, "Could you just knit a mate for this one? These are cozy and I like them, and I only need one more." So I said I would, set the sock aside, and immediately forgot all about it.

A couple of months ago, I was cleaning out the mess that was my knitting and crafting stuff, and came across the lone sock, waiting for its mate. So this time I placed it where I could see it, and determined that I would knit another one for The Tim's birthday. A couple of weeks ago, when I finished another long-term project, I picked it up and decided to see if I still had either/both colors of the yarn. I did! I tend to grab Encore when I can, because I think it's a nice yarn, and for certain projects and for certain people, it's a much better choice than other, fancier yarns.

And at last, the lonely sock once again has a mate:

I made certain to wash the older sock, and I even used the de-piller on it, and though you can tell that one has been worn, and one hasn't, they really look like they belong together! Of course, I had failed to write down the specifics - aka how many rows led to color changes, etc. - so I studied the older sock and I think I got pretty close. 

In any case, they are currently wrapped up ready for The Tim to open when we have his birthday celebration later today.

Oh - and "The Hofo Sock?" Well, it's a HO that was also an FO. 😉