Finally!

It's actually cool enough this morning that we have the windows open, and I can sit out on the porch without getting heat stroke. The cats are enjoying the novelty, as we've been shut up in the (now working!) a/c for several days. (By the way, Tim, so jealous of the Calgary weather...) In addition, the morning sickness is gone, right on schedule (I'm 16 weeks today). And thank you, Snowdrop! So I'm having rather a nice morning on the porch with a bit of espresso. The cats are being entertained by a man walking his dog down below, and even more so by a family of field mice snacking on the tall grass directly below our porch. I have a great shot looking down over Geronimo's ears to a mouse, but blogger is being mean to me today. Mirando can obviously hear/smell/sense in his own special way the mice, too, since he orients towards them and follows them as they move. Frickin' amazing. Rain, our cats always crack us up, so I'm glad you enjoy them, too! They're such characters.

Ha! Blogger finally let me upload the photo. I'm not sure if you can see the mouse...if you drew a vertical line from the top of Geronimo's left ear, the mouse is about in the center of the photo.


Knitting: Thank you to everyone who said kind things about my French press cozy! StringBean, I do think a slit in the side would be good, but I wasn't motivated to do all the purl rows of knitting it back and forth, and we don't have a problem getting the cozy on and off, so it'd be cosmetic. The steaming coffee mugs are really growing on me, and anyone's welcome to swipe the motif :) StringBean, I *loved* Shel Silverstein as a child, and I think I still have that poem memorized! My husband's been putting the cozy to almost daily use with his coffee habit, so I feel it was well worth the effort.

I've made more progress on the Candle Flame Shawl. I am going to LOVE this when it's done. I am so glad it's for me and not a gift, because I don't think I could part with it. I love the colors, I love the silk, I love the pattern. And Holly is ahead of me now on the Hourglass Sweater, despite my math impairment (which Holly assures me is a symptom of "preggo brain" and will go away eventually), so I will have to get going on that, too. I do promise that I have not been deliberately sabotaging Holly's sweater so she won't beat me in finishing, which is sad, because it means that my brain is really incapable of basic math. Has anyone read Flowers for Algernon? I have a queue of about 18 (boy, I exaggerate a lot, don't I? It's really 3-4) baby things to make for Butterbean after that. I think Christmas knitting will be whatever I can fit in after doing my shawl and sweater and Butterbean's stuff. I have a feeling the Butterbean knitting will get out of control once I know if I'm knitting for a boy or a girl (4 more weeks!).

Reading: I finished Sense & Sensibility, which I hadn't read in a while. I usually re-read all my Jane Austen once every year or two, but I think it's been longer this time. I'm on Mansfield Park now. I go back and forth over which Austen is my favorite. I think it might be P&P, though that's not really original. Rachel, you be proud about your emotional involvement with the HP books! Maybe we should start a support group for after we've read Book 7. I read Book 6 on a plane (note: Matt and I share the HP books. We generally get day-of-release delivery from amazon.com, and I read the book first because I read faster. Then the British version comes a few days later from amazon.co.uk and I read that while Matt reads the U.S. version.) because it turned out we were flying out to CA on the Saturday the book was released, so I bought it in the airport. And I read it ON THE PLANE, trying not to sob embarrassingly loud. After he read it, Matt announced that the series had ended at Book 5 and he would not be reading Book 7, he was so mad at JK Rowling. We'll have to see if he sticks to that :)

Writing: I'm back to this, which is lovely. Working today to finish revisions.

Cooking: Nothing at all. I may try a new kind of ice cream soon, and I very much want to make these Doughnut Muffins but it's too hot to have the oven on. Maybe first thing in the morning.