What's wrong with this picture?

Still have a ton of leaves on some of the trees but notice the snow on the deck. Yup gonna be one of those miserable leaf raking seasons where the leaves weigh a ton because they are wet. In addition it'll be cold once they all fall making it worse.
I'm about 16" along on my 3rd attempt on the scarf for you ISE partner. This one is a keeper for sure. It's being working in a lovely alpaca yarn. I've decided that I just love knitting with alpaca. It's so soft that you just can't put it down.

Signs of summer everywhere

From this .....
to this in about 2 weeks. This redbud is my fav tree in the yard.
Really puts on a great show every spring.
Along with a backyard filled with "beautiful yellow flowers" just waiting for my grandsons to come over and pick a ton to give to their mommy. My neighbors probably hate my guts for not spraying to get rid of these but I just love how they look. One man's weeds are another grams flowers. lol

And some knitting thrown in for good measure. Started a pair of socks and ran into a knot after the cuff. Since I don't know how the colors run I frogged and started over after the knot. Green shawl peeking in there saying, "Hummm, Diane did ya forget about me?" She's been neglected so far this week.

On the needles and off the trees

3 out of 4 of my kids are currently at NVCC studying various stuff. The college is having their annual hat/scarf/glove/mitten drive so D3 asked me to make something to donate.
And I've been working along on the shawl. Only one really bad boo boo that I didn't see until I was about 3 repeats away from it. I took another piece of yarn and fixed it instead of ripping back. My bad but you can't really tell.
And finally a shot of a tree in the back yard that was bright red a couple weeks ago.

Yarn? What yarn?

Oh hi. I didn't see you there. I'm just laying here on the bed sleeping. Yes, just sleeping and have been for quite a while. Yarn? Oh no I haven't seen any yarn around here. No honestly I don't know anything about the green yarn that was on the bed before you went to get the camera, Diane. Really I've been right here sleeping the whole time.
Ok maybe just maybe the green yarn was trying to attack me. I was just laying here and all of a sudden it started to sneek up behind me. It was self defense I tell you. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
This is the latest of the goodies from the last 2 months with my secret pal. Love, love, love it all. And I think Charlie agrees.

This is a quick shot of the backyard. It's supose to rain this weekend so I think most of the leaves will be gone shortly.

Friday already

It's fall and time to get the fireplace chimney cleaned. We had the interesting experience of having a chimney fire 2 yrs ago. If you've never had one of your own let me tell you now that it's extremely loud, very hot, and quite frightening as you watch 2 fire trucks, a police car, and 20 volunteer firefighters pull up to your house (small town so the firehouse is all volunteer). Nothing was damaged but now we make sure we have the fireplace cleaned every year. We've been burning wood every night all winter for the last 25 yrs so I guess we've been on borrowed time for a long time.

This is the fall colors today. Doesn't it look wonderful? Not! Rainy, foggy, windy, and getting colder. Great day to be stuck inside working for sure.

Friday colors

First a little knitting since this is a knitting blog. I finished a couple of apple hats for an exchange partner who has a couple little ones. Can't send a package to someone with little kids and leave them out.
And I did a couple hats for a virtual baby shower. Do they look like devil horns? Maybe I'll have to add some more icord to the top.
Lastly, this morning has that fall chill in the air. So pretty today.

Fall colors partly sunny day

Finished stacking a cord of firewood so here's the view yesterday..... and today. Very pretty.

Yucky Friday

Overcast, yuck Friday to be shooting pics of trees for sure. Oh well, lots of leaves starting to fall.
And some knitting in progress. More socks for W and a hat well on it's way for W also.

If at first you don't succeed .....

frog, frog again..... Sometimes things just don't work out as planned. Take ISE3 scarf in opal green batik. I was knitting along going very well when I looked at my needles. One size 10 needle and one size 8. Oops! Had the size 8's out to make a hat for W. No way to cover that mistake to back to square one. Can't exchange a scarf that's not made correctly.
This is Friday's fall colors. A little mist on the pond this morning and a little more color in the trees since last week. I made a hat for N which I'm calling the NNNNNOOOOOO hat. When you put it on N's head he says, "NNNNOOOOOOO" and takes it off. Think I'll block it and donate it. Colors are knitpicks grass and daffodil
Then I made this hat for W. It's blue. Blue is his favorite color. The problem? The color is knitpicks stream and in real life it's a little too teal for a boy. Damn! So I'll finish this, block it, and donate it too.
And last but not least evil has a new location. No cushie couch for this gal. Nope, she's decided to sleep half in half out of an empty box on the hardwood floor. Go figure!

UGH Monday

I noticed that the leaves are beginning to change a bit so we'll watch them together. This view is wonderful to watch.
I had one of those kick ass knitting weekends where you don't think you did much but lots gets done. I finally started a scarf for my ISPE friend. It's made in a feathers and fans pattern Opal batik. Looks really nice. Notice the wonky needle? Medal needles and people's butts shouldn't meet on the couch. I'll replace it someday but it's only been wonky for 5 yrs.
And I finished the scarf for another secret pal. It'll match the rolled brim hat I made her last month. My pal has been enjoying everything I've sent because she knits for everyone but herself. I've gone out of my way to make sure I use the softest nicest wool I can find.
I also did a couple kids hats too but those have already been sent to my daughter's so "test drive" so I could make sure they were the right size.

And finally here's a picture of Oscar giving me the "LOOK OF DEATH" this morning. She gives me the look 24/7. You'd think that after 16 yrs she's like me but nope she hate me and everyone else. I think that as long as I keep making sure there's plenty of cat food in the house I'll be ok.

It's a blue thing

Was a little caught off guard to see this guy in my yard. Interesting and useful (had a ton of other bugs in his web) but I scurried back in the house after taking this pic.
This has been a slow knitting week for me. I finished a pair of socks for W and started another. The blue opals are going to be for my son in law but I'm sure W will want them since they are blue and blue is his favorite color.

So 5 yrs ago today it was a bright sunny summer day. I was just leaving work (back when I worked part time in the office) to go to a dentist appointment when the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center came across the news. When I came back from my appointment it was apparent that this was no accident. I live in CT, the next state over from NY so just about everyone knows someone working in NY. The bosses let everyone who wanted to leave go home. I worked at home glued to the TV for the next week.

Today everyone and their brother has a story about that day. Some will launch into right and wrong, who is to blame, who is responsible, why were signs missed. Personally I'm not going down that road. I'm on September 11th TV avoidance today. I prefer to spend today reflecting on the tragic loss of life terror has brought to the world instead of watching the policitians and newcasters put their spin on events.

So if you get a chance today just send healing thoughts to those who need them to get through today.

Work in progress

Finally some flowers on the arch! It hasn't been a great summer for growing things around here but slowly things are coming along.
I bought some wonderful hand painted yarn last week. I did a roll brim hat for my secret pal for this month and started a matching scarf to send off next month. I love the colors and think the simple pattern helps show off the yarn. I also finished another pair of socks for N . Just have to hide the ends and turn right side out. I'm almost finished with the foot of socks for hubby. And I started a light weight hat for my granddaughter. It's a prototype at this point since I really think the shaping on the top will be wrong. We'll see. Plans are to add colored buttons to dress it up.

The Mailbox

If you live in the center of my town (uptown as we country folk call it) a trusty mail delivery person walks right up to your house and places you mail in box attached to your house or slides it through a slot in your door. Your newspaper is delivered the same way or placed in plastic and left in your driveway.

When you live further out like I do your mail is delivered curbside in a mailbox. The newspaper people slide the papers into curbside tubes, usually while playing the car radio quite loud at 4:30am. When I first moved into our house I thought about getting a cute, custom painted mailbox. Two days later, as I awoke to find my mailbox had been hit by a baseball bat during the night I realized that a cheap mailbox was probably going to work out fine.

The way this whole mailbox thing works is: kids with baseball bats and too much time on their hands smash it a couple times over the course of the year. During the winter the snowplow dents it while throwing snow off the road. And each time this happens you as a home owner take a hammer and beat the mailbox back into shape to allow the front to close. After 3 or 4 years you replace the box with another cheap mailbox. Still it's nice to try to dress the ratty looking mailbox up a bit.....
maybe with some nice morninglories??? If you're looking at the flowers you probably won't notice the wonkie top?? Maybe it's time to get out the hammer again.

The town crier: Ten am and all is well

I work for a very very large national health insurance company doing a job that my own family doesn't quite understand. It's not exciting but really helps people because I fix their claims that haven't been paid correctly. Like I said, not exciting but so it goes.

The perk to this lack of an exciting job is that I get to work at home; yes I'm a full time telecommuter. So on days like today where it's beautiful out I have to try to work while daydreaming. Thankfully, Joey is keeping watch over the left side front yard for me this morning.
Leaving me free to keep an eye out on the backyard.
This is the view from my office slider. Sometimes there are deer in the backyard. Other times groundhogs, bunnies, and birds. The pond it a small town owned pond where I taught my kids to swim. Now I take my grandsons over to play and swim. Really who needs an exciting life when you have this?