Close to my Heart

Frisbee's turn

What a crazy busy week this has turned out to be, good thing I have kitties or there is no way that this Blogtoberfest thing would have been able to continue.   Hopefully blogging will improve come the weekend.  In the meantime, here's Frisbee!

 

Loosing Steam

Well I contemplating not posting this morning, but here I am.  Today's picture is of our Frisbee cat.  He has the longest legs we've seen on a kitty (although you can't really tell from this picture), and I found him spread out on two kitchen chairs having a rest.

New kitty bed?

Going to keep this short because it's early Friday morning, I had a crap sleep, and I'm really really tired. Today's photo is courtesy husband and Frisbee.  Joe was outside working on his truck yesterday, came inside briefly and threw his jacket on the floor.  Frisbee seized the opportunity to use what he thought was a new cozy kitty bed.

 

"No, you can't have your jacket back it's mine now, and please move away with the camera, I need to get more sleep."

Food and a Feline

I thought I'd get today's post out of the way early.  Morning is my favourite online time, gently waking up for the work day with my coffee at my side.  Going to try to get into the morning posting groove, we'll see how it goes.

Just to show you that I do cook better meals than the fish sticks I showed you the other day, here's last night's dinner:

Roast beef, baked potato, and baked carrots. Especially significant is that I was able to get the meat pink as we like it.  I tend to overcook roasts, so see this as an accomplishment.

We have a rather sensitive smoke detector that almost always goes off when the oven is in use (and no, I don't regularly burn what's inside it).  When the detector went off while the roast was cooking, it was a bit much for Frisbee.  He sought shelter under the bed, where, by the looks of the groggy kitty in this picture, he proceeded to fall asleep.

 

Happy Monday.  Sounds like it is raining quite heavily outside, and I really wish I could stay home and sleep and snuggle with a kitty, but off to work I must go.  Fortunately, looks like dryer weather is in our forecast once we get past the next day or two.

Here's today's photo, the kitties on one of their favourite perches.  This is a good vantage point of the fish pond/patio area as well as the green belt our house borders on.  And it's a lot more fun if the wind is blowing too, which it was when the picture is taken.  Further adding to the cat endorsement, there is a heater below the window and any cat lover knows how important that is!

Action Shot

Our cats are indoor cats, but we do let them go outside on our fenced patio when we are around.  Frisbee absolutely loves going out there.  Buttons will go out initially when the door is first opened, then will come back in the house and watch the great outdoors from the comfort of the back of the love seat.  Frisbee will often jump up to the window to say Hi to his sister, at which point hissing will often occur.  Funny cats!  Anyhow, I happened to be outside with my camera today (taking sock FO pics!) when I saw Frisbee jump up.  I waited with camera on hand, hoping he would do it again.  What resulted is I think the best kitty action shot I have ever captured, and I just had to share it here.  It looks like he is climbing, but in reality he is mid jump.

The Long Weekend in Pictures

What a lovely long weekend it has been! The weather for the most part cooperated until mid afternoon Monday.  Saturday found me on a little road trip to two yarn stores in the next town over.  Here's one of the stores I stopped at, outside of which the village's annual market days was taking place.  I had fun poking around.

My purchases for the day:

Yarn for a couple baby gift sweaters as well as a pretty skein of sock yarn. 

Sunday afternoon found the cats and I hanging around on our patio.  While I knit and listened to podcasts, the cats had fun exploring:

Truly a lovely weekend!

Manic Purl Swap Package

I probably did my first online swap close to nine years ago, back in the day when I was involved in the early online crochet community.  I got away from swapping for a few years, but lately have participated in a few swaps once again.  Today I received a lovely swap package from Blogless Carla,  my partner in the Manic Purl Podcast Kit It Swap.  The main part of the swap was Patons SWS and a couple potential scarf patterns for my first attempt at entrelac.

 

The extra goodies were a cute little drawstring bag, some lip balm, a kitty pin, and chocolate.  Also included was a catnip toy, and therefore the kitties also got great enjoyment from this awesome swap box.

The First

I've always thought it fun to cast on a new item on New Year's Eve, and this year, a couple of the Ravelry groups I'm active on had threads for this as well.  I personally like to chose something quick and easy so that I don't have long to wait before I have the first Finished Object of the New Year. This year I chose a scarf, and finished it just a few days into 2009.  By the time it was blocked, dry, and I was home in the daylight to photograph, we're well into the middle of the month before I can show it to you.

Of course it's important to have a kitty to assist in the blocking process, because after all, kitty fur helps the halo of the already gorgeous Berocco Ultra Alpaca Yarn:

And the scarf being modelled by the jacket that I plan to wear it with:

This is an awesome pattern, made only slightly tedious by having to knit several rows of 600 stitches and ulitmately binding off 400 stitches.  Worth all of it in my opinion though!  Note that I used two hanks of yarn, and had enough left to make a pair of fingerless mitts.

If you are still reading, do you notice a new theme emerging here at Chez Close to my Heart?  Further hints can be found if you look check the most recent new project over on my Ravelry Project Page , and if you are on Plurk, on my profile page.  Bonus points (that are good for absolutely nothing) if you guess!

Relaxation

Monday already.  I know that at work today, I'll be longing for the Sunday that went by so quickly.  Once the weekend chores were completed, the Chez Close to my Heart household enjoyed some rest and relaxation. 

Frisbee curled up next to the big stuffed Lion, one of his favourite spots lately:

 

Meanwhile, I listened to podcasts and knit on the Koigu Diagonal Scarf.

Very mindless knitting, made more enjoyable by yummy Koigu, definitely one of my favourite yarns to knit with. The pattern for this scarf, as well as another lovely scarf knit with Koigu, are now available over at the Fun Knits website.