Pumpkin Sunrise

  Good morning!  My it's good to be back on a Friday posting. How was your first full week of the new year? I have been blissfully enjoying being home and going nowhere day after day after day. Yesterday the sun came out and we took a brisk walk, even though it was cold it was so good to be outside. Holly has been up to new adventures this week. She sneaks into the family room where I am sitting and knitting and ever so slowly creeps up to spy on Frodo sleeping.  He is snoring away so he doesn't know she is gazing at him lovingly. So far she has done this twice, the first time she had a look of concern, the second time (the above photo) she seemed curious. I know many of you choose a word for the year and I love to read about how you came about choosing your meaningful words. I've been thinking of themes for my 2021.  Mindfulness I've been reading about mindfulness and meditation for about two months as well as doing meditation twice a day. So far, I find that this prac

This morning I'm sitting at my kitchen table before 7:30 a.m. watching the sunlight beam through the trees.  I'm delighted to report that the heat and humidity is gone.  Tuesday and Wednesday were a bit 'steamy' for me.  My husband was delighted, he loves summer - the hotter the better.  Oh hey - some good news!  My husband is retiring effective mid-August. The massive amounts of paperwork and busy work was sobering but we are down to one more phone call and one more form.  Thank goodness.  I lost two solid days to paperwork and two hour phone calls.  Sadly my knitting and reading and having fun were minimal this week. We have no big plans in retirement except to see our kids.  I'm sure we will be planning something sometime somewhere.  I have to confess, I'm used to the 'staycation' frame of mind and could easily keep this up.   We only walked twice this week due to the weather and schedules.  The daisies are out and about!  Any day now the day lilies w

Happy New Year!  Usually I have great difficulty writing the new year on documents but '2020' is so easy.  This bodes well for how great the new year will be.  My house is de-decorated and everything is back to the way it used to be.  I love January and how 'fresh' the month feels.  New planners, new plans, new goals or (non-goals) and brushing off a dusty old year. As you know, I do not pick a word for the year, I just can't boil down to a word.  Also I usually have a litany of goals for the new year. Among them:  menu plan - exercise more -  eat more fruits and vegetables - read more - knit more.  Well you get the idea, I pick a myriad of goals some I achieve and some I do not.  This year my goal is to document my creative days in a daily planner.  I was in Barnes and Noble and impulsively bought a daily planner and the idea hit me:  Oh, I could track my creative days and see what I accomplish.  I've tried bullet journalling in the past and it

My Christmas was wonderful.  The day was quiet and I purposefully choose a simple meal for dinner so that my entire day was spent knitting.  I need to do this more often.  I tend to get caught up in what I believe 'has' to be done and I waste time on many tasks that could be put off until later.  I especially do this when the kids are visiting.  I find peace constantly tidying up but then I sacrifice my down time with knitting.  Truly there is a balance of both. As I mentioned before our son was with us for Christmas day and will be here until the new year.  Our daughter and son in law arrive tomorrow and we celebrate all over again.  Tomorrow will be a 'Christmas' day in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.  I'm excited for them to arrive. Above is the blanket started all over again, phew!  I am so glad I made this decision.  Now the project lays flat and I can see the simple stitch detail.  Also this project fits perfectly with mild distractions or watchin

my son washi taped his computer top Hello!  How was your first week of 2018?  I've been running around every day this week and sometimes I wish I was at home with miles of time to knit.  However, the gym three times a week is so good for me.  I haven't felt this great in a long time and I'm motivated to keep going back again and again.  What a wonderful state of mind. linens my mom made that have a tiny bit of red stain that I've been getting out  I've been reading so many blogs that have a word for the year.  I'm not a one word person, never was.  You'd think I would be since I like writing and talking non stop.  However, settling on one ONE theme word is hard for me.   I have enjoyed reading everyone's words and their meaning.  I have a few resolutions but they are completely doable so it doesn't feel like an overhaul of my life.  I plan to cultivate a better way to practice mindfulness and imagining the best case scenario instead of

Weekends are for memory making,  relaxing and enjoying quiet moments of our days.   If you would like, please share your weekend moments  in the comment section with a link to your blog. Happy New Year!  The beginning days of January feel fresh and new.  I love how I have a whole entire year to set goals and maybe achieve a few of them.  How was your weekend? My sister arrived on Friday and left on Sunday.  The weekend was a whirlwind of  activity.  We shopped a tiny bit (I bought nothing, I'm tired of buying!).  We had a lunch out and then we started with dinner preparations.  Overall, I had a fun weekend. I forget the work involved with house guests.  The making beds, washing laundry and dishwasher duty.  My daughter and son in law leave on Tuesday and my son leaves sometime at the end of the week.  What a wonderful long visit with everyone. My goals for 2017 are themed around health.  (I probably set this goal every year....)  I received some new coo