OMG

Coming up:

Tuesday: The President will host Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands for a meeting in the Oval Office.

Wednesday: The President will travel to Scranton, Pennsylvania where he will deliver remarks urging Congress to act to extend and expand the payroll tax cut that has given tax breaks to millions of families across the country this year. In the evening, the President will travel to New York City where he will attend campaign events.

Thursday: The First Family will attend the National Christmas Tree Lighting on the Ellipse.

Friday: The President will host the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Department of the Interior and deliver remarks.

And guess where I will be?  Yup.  I have been given one of the few Ithaca tickets to this Scranton event. Be still my heart.  4 of us from Ithaca and 10 from Syracuse have been rewarded for our volunteer efforts with access to this closed event.

We will carpool down there, attend the speech and then have a NY/PA OFA meeting before returning home.  I am bringing my digital camera and my iPod and my knitting and my First Lady of Fabulous tote bag. 

 If I can get a pic of my socks-in-progress with Obama that would be a lifetime dream come true.  However I know there is scant hope of getting that close but they are coming along just in case.  Maybe I can dangle them in the forefront of a picture?

Thrilled

On October 13 I mentioned a pattern of mine was accepted by Knitter's Magazine.  I had very little time in which to modify the pattern to their specs, knit it up in their nummy yak blend yarn, rewrite the pattern and get it back to them.  I was so excited although the mad rush turned out to be not fun.  However short deadlines can be met if one does not need much sleep or a social life is my humble opinion.  The time limit was met with a day or two to spare. Whew!

and then I heard nothing, nada, zilch, zero.

From that evidence (lack of evidence?) and earlier submissions I deduced that this group is not big on communication so just let it go.  I figured if they wanted something changed or hated what I did I would hear something (or not).  Nor does this magazine seem to have a fixed publication schedule so thinking I might know something by a certain date was not an option either.

However in yesterday's mail, this arrived.

Now I guess I can say the item has beads (lots of beads), is an accessory and will appear in the Winter K105 issue.

I am more than thrilled!!

Magpie?

We have two of the most adorable kittens.  They are now about 5 months old. We adopted them from the shelter when they were about 9 weeks and half feral.
They are two of the most intelligent cats we have ever had the pleasure of living with.  Our friend, Cathy, adopted the third sister and someone we don't know adopted the only boy.  However these kitties are special for lots of reasons. All their names begin with L.  We have LouAnne (on the right) and Lillie (on the left). Cathy has Lizzie and the brother was named Louie.  We have little recent info on the boy but all 3 girls like to carry stuff around in their mouths: large and small stuffed toys, small parts, bits of paper, dead mice.  They like moving things from place to place and playing with them here and there.  They rarely lose anything and are already fine mouse hunters (which was my original reason for adopting them).

They also seem to have telepathy with each other as whenever one has something special the other just shows up and assumes sharing is just fine.  They run and jump and climb all over the house, each other and us.  After a couple of months of wariness they now walk by Basel, carefully, and sometimes touch his paw or tail. As of yet they do not answer to their names as they have each other rather than depending on humans for stimulation so have not been encouraged to go outside.  We think in the spring they will just automatically use the doggy doors as most of our previous cats have learned to do.

Jim has been well trained as their personal Jungle Jim.   They love climbing all over him, then sleeping in his arms or on his shoulder.

Neither kittie likes to be picked up off the floor yet both enjoy being petted on the windowsill where they eat or if they climb into my lap.  LouAnne often joins me on the bed while I am getting dressed.  Yesterday I set out my pants and then a shirt down on the spread, then an earring to see if it matched well enough.  I saw Lou Anne come up the stairs and heard her jump onto the bed.  I turned to get a pair of socks out of a drawer and saw her leap off the bed and scamper down the stairs. I heard her playing in the kitchen and the front hall.  That is normal as both kitties store things in the hall to bat around.   But odd as she usually wants lots of pets and winds her way around me while I dress.  Then I picked up my shirt, put it on and remembered I had an earring sitting on it. Sigh. I looked and felt and looked some more. I knew I did not hear it hit the floor but looked under the bed and dresser anyways.  Finally I gave up and wore a different pair.

Then I thought about LouAnne's odd behavior and wondered.  hmmmnnnn  So I looked all over the kitchen floor and in the front hall and told Jim my suspicion.  He said as far as he could see they had not yet formed any interests in sparkly things but he would keep an eye out.

This morning he told me he found my earring at the bottom of the stairs.

So do we have a kitten or a magpie in disguise?

Ack! Ayyyyi

My first reaction after seeing this photo of the president's motorcade in Denver was "Ack! Snow already!  Glad I don't live there."

But merely a day and over 2000 miles east I drove home to:

Those were happy Hostas earlier in the day.

And the next morning we were greeted with:

 snow on oak leaves

and bent over lilacs still in leaf.

All this is incredibly pretty but the weight of very wet 'warm' snow on leaves still attached to trees tends to knock said trees over and down electric lines.  Jim went out early Saturday morning to make sure we had enough gas for our generator as another 5 inches were predicted.  Sure enough areas of the Northeast are still without power although the predicted 5 fortunately turned into only 1, for us.

That was several days ago, yet we still have a few patches of snow on the ground and the temps have  turned decidedly toward winter.  So much for the wooly bear's prediction of a moderately long fall.

The good parts are that the bunnies are very happy and I am in a frenzy of knitting and spinning (when the kittens are sleeping).

Inspired by my visit to the Atlantic Ocean coast a pattern called Newport Shawl has been written and knit.  It's a modified Faroese style and features shell stitch patterns.  This newest creation is in consideration for submission to a magazine so therefore must remain off the internet until decided.  Although one can find it in my shop with some specially dyed, ocean colored, tightly spun, 3 ply, blue face, light fingering yarn.  Come on over for First Saturday this weekend and see it in person.

However a new colorway was also inspired and is hereby announced.

Sea Glass