Pictures of Christmas

I'm giving random Christmas moments today!


Mark and the Rowing Cat reading the Night Before Christmas.

All of the cousins hanging out in the Rowing Cat's room before Christmas dinner.  We had 15 all together!  Whew!

The marvelously delicious Chocolate Strawberry Mousse cake the Rowing Cat and I made for dessert!

I spent weeks making these Tardis Socks for the Rowing Cat and would you believe that I forgot to wrap and put them under the tree???  I remembered yesterday and gave them to her - they were a hit!

Here she is trying out her takoyaki method with pancake mix.  We still have to find a recipe for the real thing (with octopus) but this was a good substitute for breakfast!

Our Montana relatives sent us a fabulous cheesecake! The Rowing Cat decided to have it for lunch!

I got my spinning wheel back out and finished off a skein of alpaca this morning.  Now I'm onto the wool I have sitting in the corner! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! Here's a little video of the Rowing Cat modeling her Rudolph headband. The nose actually lights up - I didn't realize that until I took it out of the bag!

The presents are all wrapped, Christmas dessert is chilling in the refrigerator, cookies are in the oven and the cousins are all playing a card game in the Rowing Cat's room - peace abounds this afternoon! Fish chowder and cold cuts later and The Man Who Came To Dinner with eggnog tonight.

My life is pretty good today and I hope yours is too!The Man Who Came to DinnerThe Unincorporated Man

Saratoga Victorian Street Walk - Let the Season Begin!

The Victorian Street Walk took place last night. It's an annual city celebration of our Victorian heritage! Broadway is made into a pedestrian mall for a few hours. It is soooo much fun to be able to walk in the middle of the street!

The lights are wonderful. The weather was perfect - cold but not too cold. A few snowflakes would have been nice, but we can't have it all!

There is a festival of trees with hundreds of decorated Christmas trees.

Here is my little elf having some hot chocolate in-between singing duties at the Living Nativity.

Father Christmas made an appearance!

And his reindeer of course!

Our friend Carter doing his boogie thing to the music!

The great band playing in the pharmacy!

The wonder of an ice sculpture!

This was great - it is two Civil War reenactors walking down the street singing a drunken song!

It was a beautiful night - let the Christmas season begin!

Comic Con!

We went to ComicCon/AnimeCon in NY last weekend! What an experience. Here are the two girls dressed in their Japanese schoolgirl outfits ready to go.

This whole trip was instigated by my brother. He is a comic book fan from wayyyyy back. I don't think he actually read any books when he was little - just comics. He still has a stash of them. Since he generously offered to drive us down, how could we resist? It was also an opportunity for me to work on my crochet squares for Mark's "You Never Make Me A Blanket" blanket . . . I have way too many squares to go before Christmas. But, progress was made.

Here they are outside of the Javits Center. This is before I knew what we were in for . . .

Our entrance tags secured it was off! My sister-in-law was a little worried about letting the girls go off on their own to the Anime side, but since they survived Tokyo alone this summer, I thought they would be fine! We set them free and texted when we needed to meet up.

As the day progressed there were more and more and more people there! It was absolutely crazy! I had no idea that so many people were passionate about this. It was like Rhinebeck on steroids. You could hardly move in the vendor area. Tons of people were dressed up in costumes. Go over to the website and take a look at the Flickr group - it is pretty amazing! The girls got asked to have their picture taken aobut 10 times! We saw Stan Lee - that was pretty amazing! And there were load of exttremely talented artists drawing on Artists Row. This man was completing a HUGE chalk drawing on the floor!

It was a fun, fun day! The girls are looking forward to going to the Anime conference in Boston in April! I did finish my first super secret Christmas gift. One down and many still to go!

The Rowing Cat is continuing her foray into Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. She's on Book 4 of Laurie King's series! They are really fun books!

And of course another Anime book that she has been "waiting and waiting" to come out in English!

And finally, my tag for Comic Con with my button for Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series - another fun series of books with a Steampunk theme!

Army of Women

As you know, in February of 2007 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation and am now in my third year of medication.  I was 47 when I was diagnosed and it was through a routine mammogram.  So I'm a tireless proponent of having a mammogram every single year, no excuses.  When was your last mammogram?????

I am also taking part in the Army of Women.  What is this you ask???

"The Army of Women initiative, a program of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, funded by a grant from the Avon Foundation for Women, is recruiting ONE MILLION WOMEN of all ages and ethnicities, with or without breast cancer, to sign up and participate in breast cancer research studies. If we can get ONE MILLION WOMEN involved in research, we are one step closer to understanding the cause of breast cancer and how to prevent it."


Head on over to their website, take a look and I hope you will sign up!

Army of Women

Weekends

Well, last weekend came and went and things got done.  I worked a little on the WWII Navy Iceland Sweater I'm making for Mark because I ". . . never make HIM a sweater . . ." ;-)  I found this pattern on the American Red Cross Museum site.  There are several patterns there.  The interesting thing about these patterns is what is left out.  I'm so used to reading a pattern that has every little thing spelled out in triplicate with different instructions for different sizes, technique explanations, sizing and charts.  Take a look at the pattern - it's basically take your yarn and needles and knit!  It assumes that you already have an understanding of shaping and sizing and gauge.  A very different way of knitting.  I've made some adjustments in hopes that it will actually FIT Mark!

Our friend Rich came up last weekend.  He is a recent convert to rowing and bought a double racing shell that Mark picked up for him.  He came to do some work on the boat and to take a rowing lesson on Schroon Lake.  Of course, while he was here, Mark got him to help with one of those projects that never seems to get done.  They borrowed my Dad's chainsaw and cut down the trees next to our very old shed. 

Of course now you can actually SEE the shed and it looks TERRIBLE next to our house.  A new shed is in the works!

I've been reading Mr. Peanut, a book recommended by the Books on the Nightstand podcast (which I love, by the way!)  There's nothing better than a good book and a cup of coffee on a lazy Sunday afternoon!

Here's a little progress on the pink beret.  I actually finished and blocked this during the week, but it is too large!  I may try to felt it slightly to see if it will shrink to a better size.  Or I may frog and re-use for a different hat! 

And a final picture of the Cat.  She really captures the weekend way to be!

Spinning Spinning

I've been  doing some spinning now that the weather has cooled down a bit.  I decided to pull out the green alpaca that I bought last year at Rhinebeck.  Finally!  It was soooo wonderful to spin - soft like butter.  

I'm planning to ply it with the remainder of my chocolate brown llama fiber from Saratoga LLamas.  I think it will be a beautiful mix - what do you think?  The Rowing Cat is already coveting the yarn to come!

This is a beautiful merino spun with KnitPicks Palette yarn.  This is destined to be a Christmas hat and mitts for a certain niece of mine ;-)

Here are my latest socks made with Shibui Sock Yarn.  I have another pair started - you can never be without a pair of socks on the needles!

Howdy!

What have you all been up to???  I've been taking a break, but now I'm back!  My biggest news is that the Rowing Cat spent 6 weeks in Japan this summer with the AFS program. 

She had an incredible time and met some wonderful friends.  What an experience!  I was soooo jealous :-)

From 2010-08-06 Here she is in her host mom's Summer Kimono - great color!

From 2010-08-06

They had a cooking demonstration class with all of the students and their host families.

Making Takoyaki at her host family's apartment!   Look for some knitting here this weekend!