Anticipating a Long Weekend

The last week has been particularly....weeklike.   Which is to say stuff happened.

1.  My ancient and venerable Saturn has at last passed on to the Great Scrap Heap in the sky.  I more than got my money's worth- 13 years and 234,000 miles.  And I'm rather looking forward to not, say, standing in my driveway pouring oil into the engine in January.  Or having the visor on the driver's side suddenly fall in front of my eyes when I'm driving.   Or having some rather important piece of vehicle break and strand me by the side of the road.   But it's still a bit sad to see it go. 

2.  As a direct consequence of #1, I spend a good chunk of the week researching cars.  I hate shopping.  I really hate shopping for cars.  The only saving grace was the ability to do the worst of it on the internet.

4.  I settled on a used 2011 Toyota Prius. So far, I'm liking it, though it's going to take me a while to get used to the differences.

5.  I'm still knitting that scarf.  Or perhaps I should say that I'm not yet finished with the scarf, which is both the partial cause and effect of swapping off with a couple of different projects.

6.  Such as, when in doubt, knit a hat.  

7.  And I whipped through a nice little pair of fingerless mitts for a coworker who was freezing at her desk.  These wound up being a few rows shorter than originally planned, as I ran out of yarn.  There was some last minute robbing Peter to pay Paul to make them come out the same size. 

And now I am so looking forward to the long weekend.   Wherein I will visit and eat and play with yarn.   And then repeat it until I run out of weekend.  Here's hoping yours will be as pleasant. 

It's All About Sleeping

It's been a busy week, and a dark one, what with the time change.  And I've learned a few things.  For example, I've confirmed what I always suspected....when it comes to cats, it's all about sleeping.

What?!  Cats are trying to sleep here.

A cat's castle is his castle.

Mmn, warm toasty fire.

On the coldest nights, even fluffy cats want to climb in bed
with the people.

The only thing happier than one cat napping is two cats
napping.  (Have you ever heard the sound of one cat
 napping? It sounds like purring. Interspersed with little
cat snores.)

Zzzzzz.

We can sleep in any position.

See?

Asleep in front of the television...er, birdfeeder.

Cookie takes a turn in front of the wood stove.

I have learned other things, however they are less photogenic.  For example.

- A splitting maul is indeed a better tool for splitting wood than an axe.

- It may be the case that one can split some kinds of wood with just the maul, but for the remnants of giant hardwood trees, wedges are still required.

- If one is a forty-something person who hasn't split wood recently, spending a couple of hours doing it will make one rather sore.

- As sore as one may be after splitting wood, I'm experiencing a strong suspicion it's going to be worse in the morning.

- Giant logs need to be split not once, not twice, but into about six pieces before they are small enough to fit in the stove.   (The tree was approximately 24" in diameter.)

- For an allegedly flammable substance, wood fires can take some persistence to get burning.

- But giant logs burn for a gratifyingly long time once you manage to ignite them. 

- It is much wiser to dwell on the pleasant warmth of the fire than the fact that you split only one of the giant log chunks in two hours and have several dozen more to go.

...Yeah, I'm still knitting that scarf.   You knew that, right?  

Finally

I went.  I voted.  Now I'm just hanging in until 8 pm when the polls close and people stop bloody calling us. 

And if you haven't voted yet, please do.  It's important. 

Shuffling through leaves, a few weeks ago in Amherst MA. 

Blur

I think someone must have hit fast forward, because the week has fairly flown.  I still had power when I got home from work on Monday (driving through wind driven rain), so I threw some bread in the breadmaker and then we had grilled cheese sandwiches on homemade bread and leftover chili for a quick dinner.   It turned out to be unnecessary to rush- the power only flickered once and never went off.   At the height of the storm I could hear the firecracker-like pop of branches snapping, but nothing big came down near me.   Some of my co-workers lost power; mostly the ones who live in wooded areas.   Most had it back in a day or so.  My work didn't lose power either.  So- great for us, but there was a good deal more damage on the coast, and of course folks further south are going to be a long time recovering.

I did find time during the week to rip and reknit the scarf, this time in linen stitch.  I absolutely love it.  The pooling is a thing of the past. 

Today my parents came to visit.  They said they wanted to see us, but I know better.  It's the grandcats who were the stars of the show.  And Biscuit was very brave. He actually let my dad pat him.   After they left, the cats were completely worn out.  Cookie retreated to the cat castle:

And Biscuit sacked out in his favorite armchair.  Note the sleepy look.

No napping for me, though.  Today was the first day I was home in daylight without rain since the storm.  My husband raked, and I picked up kindling in the yard and piled it with the firewood, then fished tree branches, and then the pool cover out of the pool and re-secured the edges to the deck.  No big surprise that the pool cover had come adrift in that wind.  I'm just happy it stayed in my yard- it could easily have taken off in the wind and come down somewhere west of the Berkshires. 

I also got caught up with housework, laundry and went in to the library to return some books and pick up more, including the latest Mike Shepherd which they were holding for me.  I do love my library.  It isn't as pretty as the gorgeous historic building in the town where I grew up, but it's large, well stocked, and the staff are terrific. Admittedly I'm predisposed to love any place that is full of books.

For my last trick, I built a nice fire in the woodstove.  Biscuit and Cookie have both discovered that the chair in front of the woodstove is a nice warm spot:

(Cookie has a warm spot too, he's asleep on my lap, making it deuced difficult to type.)

Lots to do tomorrow as well- we need more leaf bags,  I've got some work work to do, and of course knitting.  I'm probably going to be trying to stick mostly to Christmas knitting for a while.  My ratio of UFOs to FOs on the holiday list is nowhere near where it should be!