Tuesday

 Not much happening around these parts. It's getting cooler, and the plants on the patio are starting to lose their lively look. I cut the basil down to stalks and gave it to my friend when she was here Saturday. She has a dehydrator and will put it in a jar and get it back to me. I told her to keep some, but she has some of her own herbs already dried.

I finished the Desert Frost shawl, and it's blocking in the basement. What a pretty pattern. It'll be perfect for a cold November day.

I swear, this thing changes color with every picture that I take. 

The three sections go together well, and I enjoyed knitting all three. I would knit this pattern again. Although, I think that I'd do it in a merino and not alpaca. I like the alpaca, but the stitch definition would show up better in another fiber, I think. 

I'm now going through Ravelry to find a sweater pattern for this yarn. Not sure when or why I bought it, but I only have 4 skeins (880 yards). So I think it will have to be more like a tee. It's worsted weight merino. Super soft, and I like how the color hasn't saturated the yarn. The search goes on...

This old girl went to the vet yesterday. Bella is 13 now ( I thought she was 14 until we checked her chart. Whoops...) and still has a little pep to her. She gets around fine, and lets us know loud and clear when it's dinner time. I've had her since she was 15 weeks old. She puts up with a lot of Reggie's shenanigans, and for that she is a saint. She got a clean bill of health yesterday. They did do some bloodwork, for which I have not gotten the results. But all in all, she's a happy puglet. 

Saturday

 Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is probably my most favorite place to go. The last time that I was there was in November 2019 for a long weekend. It was cold and rainy for most of the trip, but one day the rain stopped, the temperature became warmer. The sun had a brief appearance. I snapped a quick picture of the boardwalk with my phone. 

To this day, it's one of my favorite pictures, and is my computer's screen saver. It brings me peace to look at it. So when I decided to put a picture on the wall in the newly remodeled bathroom, I had it put on canvas and framed. 

Now, I get a little feeling of peace every morning as I start my day.

On the knitting front, the shawl that I started has been ripped out. I just didn't like it! I was not enjoying knitting it at all. So I searched for a mosaic pattern on Ravelry, and found "Desert Frost". It's perfect, and I am so enjoying knitting it. There's texture in solid color, and mosaic color work. Just perfect.

I'm using the same yarn. It's amazing how the color seems to be different with every photo I take.

See the slipped stitch pattern in the solid part? Kind of a herringbone look. I highly recommend this pattern. 

I had two close friends over on the patio today to knit. It was such a mood lifter to see two friends in person and knit with them. We were distanced, yet we felt close and had a few laughs. And my one friend gave me some of her home made apple butter! 

Oh, and I made a pumpkin spice cake for the occasion. It was so good. 

I hope that you all had a good day! I know that I did!

Wednesday

 I have given the shawl a second chance. I ripped back quite a bit and knitted it again. So far so good. 

It's kind of wonky the way it knits up on the right side, but hopefully will block out nicely. 

I had two new chairs delivered yesterday for the high counter in the kitchen. Originally I had bought 2 chairs on an online home goods site back in March (the company rhymes with Hey There). One of them basically disintegrated. My husband kept re-screwing the screws to keep it from being wobbly, but one day it finally fell apart. So, I went out of the box as far as my style and bought two new ones at a better company. I love them!

They're navy and white striped and woven. Very comfy and can be wiped down to clean. 

Here's a picture of a cute little critter taking a nap on the fence outside the kitchen window. He stayed there for a while, then scampered off. I think that I woke him up.

That's about it. We voted by using a ballot box yesterday. I'll be checking online in a few days for confirmation that it was received. Went to the grocery store this morning. Everyone was masked up, and I felt pretty safe. Today I'm working on the shawl and will be taking Sir Reggie for a walk with the husband. Enjoy your day! I'll leave you with this:

Tuesday

 It's a sunny cool day here in my neck of the woods. My wind chimes are chiming away out on the patio, and maple leaves are slowly dropping from way up in the tree. 

I have a beautiful hosta plant in my yard. It was transplanted from my former Mother-in-law's house. It's spectacularly huge, and is a beautiful light green. I tried to find a past picture of its entirety, but this is all that I can find.

But you get the idea. I diligently spray this baby with "Deer Out" every few weeks all Spring and Summer long. This keeps it from becoming a salad bar for my wandering neighbors overnight. It's a great product, and is not toxic. Mostly mint and lavender oil. Anyway, I must have gotten lax with the spraying these last weeks.

Stalks... Seems that there was a feast in my yard last night. 

Luckily, Lion's Ear and Japanese Anemone are not a delicacy to my deer friends. They are growing over five feet tall, and are really putting out some blooms this year.

Above: lovely fall orange of the Lion's Ear

The Japanese Anemone came into my yard as a volunteer. I have moved it from the back to the front of the house and this year has been its best year yet.

On the knitting front, I started a new project with alpaca yarn that I bought this year at the Md. Sheep and Wool Festival(virtual). It's from an alpaca farm and the yarn is tagged with a photo and the name of the alpaca that supplied the yarn. Here's the pattern and the yarn that I'm using. All from a place called Berrymeadow Farm.

I knit up to where the second color (the darker of the two) was added and knit in dashes across the shawl. I have ripped it out, because I don't like how I've carried the other yarn up the side. I'm about to add it again, but I'm just not in love with this project. Thaddeus has provided some beautiful yarn, and the pattern is well written. It's me. I'm just not into it. I will try one more time to keep going. Pictures later.

Sunday

 First off, I need to clarify something. When I said that we remodeled our bathroom, I meant that we paid a lot of money to a company to do the work to remodel our bathroom. This girl knows nothing about pipes, grout or electric wires. What I do know is communicating my vision to the professionals, picking out all Tile, faucets, cabinets, cabinet pulls, natural light options, etc. and getting someone else to do the work! Thank you all for your compliments. It came out exactly as I envisioned it would be. The one thing that I did not pick out was the ceiling color. I picked the blue walls, and the contractor suggested using a darker tone of blue for the ceiling. What a great effect it made!

And if you're wondering what role my husband played, he prefers me to pick out things, then come to him for his opinion (which is always positive). He says he has no taste. I beg to differ. I mean, he married me, right? 

Yesterday involved a lot of blocking..

I finished the Grinchy socks last night while watching bad 60's horror on Svengoolie..

Now I need to peruse the stash upstairs and figure out what I want to knit next. Stay tuned!

Some of us are taking the whole "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" seriously!

Friday

 It's Friday, which does not prompt the end-of-work-week happy dance as it did around this time last year. Last year, this was my last month of work before retirement. I retired on 10/31 last year. Wow. Can't believe that it's been that long already.  But then when I think of the lost time due to the pandemic, it feels like eons. So many things we would have done in 2020 that have been put on hold...sigh.

Ah, well. I have many things to be happy about. A husband who is with me through this. A room full of yarn. Roof over our heads and food on the table. 

Speaking of the roof, we raised the one in our bathroom and totally renovated it. The ceilings upstairs run along the roof line, so they slant. Our shower was very short, and my 6 foot husband had to crouch a bit under the shower head. Not any more! The roof was raised, a skylight was put in, and my ancient tiled bathroom came into modern day! Here's some before and after shots...

Before:

See how slanted and low the ceiling is in the shower picture below?

During:

After:

That's my big news from the last few months. Is it weird to love a bathroom? 

In other news, I finished Grinchy sock #1. 

It's October

 It's October. It's when changes come to the yard and the wildlife changes.  Flowers fade and tomatoes on the vine just won't turn red any more.

There are mantises galore. They are camouflaged in many ways. Above are two examples. 

The monarch butterflies have been abundant.  More this year than I ever remember.

And they manage to pose quite nicely for me. This one is a male. Do you want to know one way to tell?  See those two black dots in the middle of the smaller wings near the end of its body? That's a sure sign.

My hummingbirds have left for the winter for a warmer climate. But one managed to stay still a few weeks ago, long enough for a quick picture.

My current project on the needles is a pair of Christmas socks. The color scheme seems more like the Grinch than Christmas, because of all of the Grinchy green. But it's beautiful yarn and quite sparkly. 

Simply Socks Yarn Co. had a big sale on some Christmas yarn a few weeks ago, and I took advantage. I bought 3 skeins. More on the other two later.

Hope everyone is having a good week. Thank you for all of your comments, and welcoming me back to the blogosphere!