Better Late Than Never

I feel, sometimes, as if I'm always late to the party. As if nothing ever happens at a good time, or that I've got too much going already to get involved with anything else. But time is going to march on whether I get in step or not, and one needs to simply jump in anyways.

I know I'm over a week late to Knit Unto Others, and I doubt that I'll finish my project by Saturday night, but in the midst of all the other gift knitting I know that I need to share a little of what I have with someone in need. I've decided to do a scarf for the Red Scarf Project, mainly because I stand a fighting chance of being done on time. I'm going to do just a simple basketweave pattern and work on it along with my other gift knitting. I've made myself a schedule of how much needs to be done each day. The challenge will be there; I've got lots of long hours, overtime, training, and extra projects scheduled for work in December. Not by my choice, but because everyone seems to want something done in the next couple weeks. Therefore, the mad rush to finish Christmas shopping before the real madness starts.

Buddy is still with us. We haven't heard a thing from Lori about an owner showing up out of the blue. He is still being walked off his feet, but now all the college kids are gone and things may let up a bit for him. We can tell he misses the kids; in fact, he misses anyone who heads out the door. He doesn't seem to be eating a whole lot, but we may not be feeding him what he's used to. We're feeding regular dry food and it doesn't seem to be what he's really looking for. Big Cat has finally accepted him and will submit to an occasional nuzzle, but she will hiss when she doesn't want to be bothered and Buddy accepts that and backs off. Little Cat, however, will have nothing to do with Buddy. She spends all day behind the living room couch and only comes out at night when Buddy is sleeping in Barbara's room. Any ideas on how to encourage a relationship? Other than Little Cat's issues, Buddy is fitting in just fine.

In other activities, while I was Christmas shopping I bought myself some presents. Here is part of it. I bought myself 4 ounces of Ashland Bay Trading Co. Colonial Top in "Red". It looked so Christmassy I couldn't resist. The colors are really much darker than they look here. I broke down the four ounces into one ounce segments and I intend, at least right now, to spin up each ounce by itself and then Navajo ply it. Right now I'm thinking socks, but we'll see what I end up with once it's spun. I've been spinning about half an hour to 45 minutes every day, not trying to overdue the right forearm muscles spinning the drop spindle.

I got this top and three others in Tucson, in the shop that I remembered seeing it in about a year ago. That first time they had a basket with roving; this time they had several large baskets and drawers filled with different weights and types and colors. And the nice lady in the shop apologized because they didn't have a bigger selection!! It will probably be a good thing if I don't go back there too often; I really don't want to start stashing much roving either. Anyways, this is definitely spinning up differently than the white roving I started with. This is much softer and I have to get more twist into it. You all knew I wasn't going to resist the dyed roving for very long.

Time for me to cut things short. Buddy wants to go for a walk.