SO VERY THANKFUL

During this crazy, 

difficult year,

 thank goodness we still have so many things to be thankful for.

A lovely home with beautiful gardens to surround us,

healthy successful children who have found their way,

four grands who are delightful and keep us smiling,

and yes our good health,

even though as we age we find our bodies slowly breaking down.

But we continue to work thru that by exercising and eating as clean as possible,

for us anyways.

Ha!

In the bigger picture,

I'm so thankful that my son-in-law Michael continues to fight against his brain cancer tumor.

He is almost done with his Chemo treatments and the tumor has shrunk a bit.

To look at him you would never know he is sick.

My son's in-laws,

Mary and Nick,

 are now both struggling with different kinds of cancers.

Mary is in her 5th year,

 and her 5th round of treatments.

Her 5th time to loose all her hair,

she is the bravest person I know and again,

never complains.

She inspires me daily with her strength and will to live.

And we just found out recently that her husband Nick has a rare form of bone cancer. 

Luckily it was found early and is treatable by replacing his blood twice a week.

No pills yet, 

and no chemo or radiation.

He is the picture of health and well-being.

We will be together today to eat, drink and be merry for another year round the table.

Today I find myself giggling over this most recent find in the potato bag.

I'm in charge of the mashed potatoes,

which are not "clean" at all.

Full of butter, sour cream, whipping cream, cream cheese with a hint of garlic and rosemary.

They are my specialty and are asked for on this day of giving.

So I could not bare to cut up this wonderful discovery for the boiling pot.

I will take it with me to share and make everyone else laugh with me.

I cannot tell you what my husband said about it,

but I'm sure you can imagine.

LOL 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

SOME PROGRESS

Couldn't decide which photo I liked better so I just put them both  up.

There are 7 Sections to get thru and I'm 3/4 thru number 4.

The leaves down the hill here have finally started to turn and they are stunning.

The ones in the photo above are Ornamental Pear 

and I've been Eco-Dyeing with them this and last week.

After our rain over 2 weeks ago I noticed that their leaves left a print on the sidewalk

so up they were scooped for the dye bucket.

So far the chocolate brown and yummy turquoise yarns have not been paired together.

Really looking forward to that coming up in Section 5.

A SNEAK PEEK

Discovering super star knitter Andrea Mowry has been delightful.

I found her on Knit Stars about 2-3 years ago now 

and have been drooling over her patterns ever since.

But alas,

they look so difficult,

so I've been stalling for quite some time before getting started on one of her smaller projects.

Recently I got brave enough to attempt her Shift Cowl,

and it really is excruciatingly challenging for me.

Not because the stitches are difficult,

it's basically Stockinette and Slip Stitches, 

but because I constantly loose track of where I'm at in the pattern.

Plus I'm carrying two different color yarns at all times. 

It actually took me 4 tries just to get started and that's even after I watched her tutorial-

several times.

Ha!

But it's totally worth it.

I look forward to the challenge all day long.

I know I've mentioned this before but I won't allow myself anything fun (craftsy) 

until after all my work is done and house is cleaned up.

I know I'm weird that way.

Wondering if anyone else does the same thing?

I can't seem to allow myself to play unless everything's in it's place.

So what I've found,

 that is working somewhat for me,

 is a journal to tell myself where I've left off for the night,

to help check off rows,

to help me keep track of how many rows to rip off and put back on 

because I see a mistake several rows below.

The list is endless of all the mistakes I've made in this piece.

Pretty frustrating at times.

I'm also trying to watch and listen to my Netflix shows while I knit,

and I need Closed Captioning 

because I won't go get a hearing aide that was recommended 2 years ago.

But that's another story.

So I can't look up,

 and if I do I goof up.

I have never had to pay such close attention to something that usually is so relaxing

 and comes so easily to me.

But I love it,

I know it's good for my tired old brain.

Speaking of that,

have any of you tried Prevagen?

It's supposed to help with short term memory.  

And if so, 

have you noticed a difference?

YARNS

In case you are wondering,

 the yarns are by Malabrigo and they are Sock Weight/Fingering.

I adore knitting with them and the extended color shifts.

Super soft and yummy plus a fabulous color selection.

Andrea actually uses Spincycle Yarns in a thinner weight.

Gorgeous to look at on the Internet.

Ordered and tried them but for me they were stiff to the touch and hard to knit with,

plus almost double the price.

INTRODUCING THE NEWEST GRANDPUP, OOPS, I MEAN GRANDKITTY

This is our newest little one, 

a rescue that my son found under his home.

Abandoned by it's mother at two weeks,

sick, dehydrated and blinded by gook in his eyes;

 my son and his wife brought him into their home,

took him to the vet, 

bottle feed and helped him go potty.

(I had photos of all this except I lost my phone recently and lost all my contacts and pictures :(

My daughter and I drove out to meet him at 4 weeks here...

and we both fell instantly in love.

 This is our boy now at 10 weeks.

Still deciding on a name, 

for now called little Tuna.

He has also been raised by a Grandfather Rocky,

an Uncle Dinkers and Step Mommy Little Farter.

So this will now be their 4th cat,

unless he gets adopted by us or perhaps one of their friends.

It was so very hard not to bring him home with me this weekend.

But our pup Sophie would be devastated and her nose so out of joint.

Soph has been an only child for nine years now and rules the roost in our home.

Ha!

PUMPKIN LOVE - part two

Displaying my son and daughter-in-law's homegrown pumpkins at the cabin...

and putting up all the harvest decorations throughout home and yard.

That's huge love for me.

Putting out artist/illustrator Patience Brewster's mini 3-d designs come to life,

along with fiber artist Barbara Nelson's stuffed whimsical creations

on a Halloween tree design by Patience is always something I look forward to.

Barbara is still going strong at 87 although this was the first year

the Artistic License Art Show wasn't put on due to Covid where her work is featured.

I've collected one of her whimsical creatures almost every year since I was in my 30's.

Creating pumpkin designs with my new fiber students and and long time dear friends,

was so enjoyable this year.

Aileen Perry,

Whitney High's Biology teacher,

 along with her sister Suzanne Campbell,

Whitney High's Principal's secretary and I have been spending the last 5 months together,

meeting up once a week at my home studio for chatting and creating.

And yes there is mask wearing and social distancing going on!

HA!!

This is satisfying my need to teach as well as keeping me abreast with all the goings on

 at my beloved school that I continue to miss so very much.

Aileen gifted me with the lovely ochre pumpkin in the middle

and inspired me to design my own pumpkins for gifting and display.

Now the gals want to learn to quilt,

so I'm teaching them to eco-dye first to learn about all the dyes that can be extracted from plants.

This will them a rich array of color on cottons and linens to design their quilt with.

Then they will learn to hand stitch and embroider

doing a little preliminary on felt before constructing a mini quilt.

It's up to them where we go after that.

Possibly basketmaking, weaving , felting, bookmaking;

it's all so much fun for me.

It was Aileen's idea to try and make a child's mobile using a few of the characters from Harry Potter.

She has become an avid knitter in only a few months.

Above is the Sorting Hat I demoed for her

(a fairly challenging pattern).

We've also completed the snake and hedgehog and are working on the lion right now.

I'm not a big Harry Potter fan so I used my Sorting Hat as a Halloween display.

Another big love for me during this time of year is collecting and pressing fall leaves.

I just found these from last years collection when I was looking thru a big Coffee Table book.

Amazing how they haven't lost their color in a years time.

Now what to do with them?

Hummm?

This is also the time for us here in Southern Ca. to take down our dried out summer gardens.

This weekend I helped my son remove all his dried up pumpkin and squash vines

and tah dah, 

we can see his backyard again.

I think I might have mentioned a couple of posts back

that when he and his wife moved into their home,

they gutted their backyard.

We amended it with bucket loads of steer and chicken manure,

so the sunflowers they grew were pretty ginormous...

LOL...

as you can see here.

I got to take one of these beauties home with me yesterday,

 and I'll scatter the seeds next spring at the cabin.

Well, maybe not all of them.  

I'll give a lot to our always hungry Blue Jays.