Home again..

We went to Ohio for Thanksgiving. I got to meet my two nieces, twins, 5 months old. Amazing how they are so different! We ate lots, laughed lots, it is difficult to live away from family. But I remind myself that there are other families that are even farther apart this holiday season. And I am grateful for being able to travel to see ours. I saw my best friend Cheryl, and we shopped. And shopped. All I have left to get for Christmas are gifts for Jim. And some toys for the cats. Even though Jim said I have to throw some out if I am buying new. :-)

My birthday!!!

Today is my birthday, and I took the day off. Because I needed a break, and I don't work my birthday. It's my special day to do whatever I wish. And today I will be writing, working on my novel for http://www.nanowrimo.org/, I have just over 12,000 words. I am finding that having to report in my word count is motivating me. And I am also figuring out that the writing habit that works for me is to write for 30 minutes or so and take a break. Everyone does it different, this is what is working for me. And I am having fun, last night I gave my main character a dog. How cool is that? :-)
I am also going to finish knitting a hat today for the troops, a lady on my knitting list is collecting them to send off.
So those are my big birthday plans, as well as going out to dinner!

Last weekend...

Last weekend we did a mystery quilt class, and I finished a whole quilt top in a weekend (about 64" by 74"). From this:

To this:

Paige did a Scooby Doo:

We had a great time. And I used some of my stash! The snowmen fabric was actually one Paige had given me after I admired it in her stash, she had already made 2 quilts with it.

Hockey again this weekend!

Gorby's Discovery

Gorby has discovered what the birdfeeder is. The little birds are darting from the apple tree to the feeder and back...and she's really loving it! She watches for awhile and then comes to yell at us like "Come check this out!"

I am very glad we put that feeder up for her!

Preparing for winter

So a couple weekends ago I woke up to snow.

To get ready this year we bought a birdfeeder for our cat. Our cats don't go outside, and in the winter Gorby gets very sad when she can't see the birds. So we set this up for her,

It's right outside the bay window where she likes to sit, and I can fill it from the deck and I don't have to try to get thru the snow to it. Hopefully it cuts down on her sighing, she actually does sigh when it snows out!

I finished the baby sweater for my co-worker,

Fiber trends pattern #CH-33, Baby Brights. It's a great pattern.

Jim was given a puppet yesterday, it's going to school with him. The cats aren't too sure about it, Shadow wouldn't even pose with Lil' Doc...see the resemblance? :-) Thanks for the puppet Travis!

Half over

The work week is over 1/2 over and we are headed into a busy weekend. We have hockey games to go to, and we also have tickets to a comedy show. I hope to finish some projects up this weekend, I can knit on the sock at the hockey games, just have to get it fixed, I lost a stitch and had to rip back at the last game. Oh bother! I would like to finish one sock and the baby sweater I am working on. And I really do need a pair of mitts to match my new winter coat I got last year, and it's getting cold enough to wear mitts, we've had snow twice, it just didn't stay.

This weekend...

I didn't get the baby sweater done that I wanted to. I did buy an alternate gift for the shower just in case, and it's wrapped and ready to go for the baby shower tomorrow after work. It was decided Thursday to have the baby shower on Monday, and I was caught unprepared. So I think that I will go ahead and make a couple baby sweaters and have them on hand just in case!
The Lakers played their first game on Saturday night and won. It was a great time!