Mostly Random

In the absence of any sort of unifying theme for the post, I'll just talk about what I've been up to.  It's kind of all over.

1.  Laughing at the cats.  Some of the best times this week has involved the furry friends. (Besides, cute cat pics?  Always a blog win.)
 
Twenty five pounds of cats in a twelve-pound castle. 

2.  Getting a new TV.  The old one gasped its last--evidently Ken Burns and the occasional wildlife documentary were too much for it.   Admittedly, this is only the second TV I've actually bought- the first was right after college.  (There were two others in between that one and this, but they were hand-me-downs.)

 
"But I am the nature special!"

3.   Getting a new pool filter.  This one was a planned purchase, unlike the TV.  But there appears to be some kind of firm rule that no pool activity can be accomplished with only one trip to the pool store, no matter how carefully you made the list.  I still believe that this will be an improvement over the old system, but clearly we're not there yet.   A suggestion for any pool equipment manufacturers out there:  Standard fittings. 

4.  Finishing the blue hat.  I'm completely charmed by it.  I wound up swapping out the dark blue in the middle because I was getting low- the effect is like band of fog at mid-hat. 
 

I'm especially pleased with how the decreases came out.   Particularly since I improvised them on the fly. 
 

5.  Mittens.  I know I said I was over the mittens.  I may have been wrong.  Or it may just be that with so much else going on I wasn't ready to tackle anything more complicated.

  I will note that the pink mittens were unusually obstreperous, and I ran out of all three shades of pink I was using.  But I was in no mood to take any lip from a pint sized pair of mittens and I pressed onward.   I did wind up having to duplicate stitch over a stripe that wound up in the wrong place, but I got my way in the end.  Without ripping. 

6.  I spotted one of the goofier car accessories I've ever seen in real life, coming home from the knitting group.
 
"Hi, sugar.  Come to this parking lot often?"

7.  Watching the cats watching the squirrels.  Or not watching them. 
 
"Biscuit!  There's a squirrel.  He's right there!  Hanging by his toes, so he can get his face into the birdfeeder.   Look, you dufus!"

8.   Watching the cats chase toys.  Biscuit appears to find the laser pointer way more exciting than the squirrel.  Also, he can cunningly camouflage himself among the socks.  I'd never spot him there.
 
Biscuit hides where the red bug can't see him coming. 

9.  And while the rest of us run around, at least one member of the household is on top of things.  In this case, my laptop.


Cookie wants to know why I'm pointing that flashy light thing at him again.  .   
 
So there you have it.  I have ambitions for more colorwork, but it's going to have to wait until I'm a tad less busy.  Or at least until the new pool filter is hooked up and running.