So Cute!

I've waited a whole year for Knitpurlgirl to have this amazing yarn back in stock. My skein just arrived and I'm dying from the adorbs of it. It's hand dyed so that rows of Santas form as you knit! How? No idea but I love it.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/knitpurlgurl

Megan and Ryan, the Terrifying Dolls

Meg and Ry, it's a damn good thing for you two that I don't crochet well.  Otherwise, you'd totes be getting "Megan and Ryan", these dolls I just spotted in one of my crochet books (my customers do love to crochet these type of dolls.  So they have their fans):

You could use Megan and Ryan to frighten your children into behaving...

Finishing Flurry!

Folks, you would not believe the growing stack of finished projects around here.  Team Plack is in a knitting frenzy.

Tony has taken to knitting like you wouldn't believe.  Here he is modeling his very first cable scarf and a cabled hat.  Lots more where that came from too -- he just produced his first color work project, a hat with dragons -- and did an outstanding job.

Here are Cara's Mittens of Doom.  Poor girl had to reknit the second mitten three times.  But well worth the effort, they're adorbs.  And she only threatens to quit knitting forever once a night...

And here are my "Knittens" (mittens with knitting abbrevs.), which I had to finish up when I realized I do not have a single pair of hand knit mitts.  And I've only been knitting for 45 years..

Don't want to steal their thunder (and hoping they will post on their own blogs) but Katie just finished her first-ever sweater, and it's elegant, plus Peeps is working on her first-ever sweater, which is also going to be gorgeous.

I need to lay out all the projects the gang has knit in the last few months and take a pic, bc it's an impressive pile.

Good Lord, Season 6 Can't Come Soon Enough!

I finally caught up on my "Breaking Bad" episodes.  OMG.  Season 4 finale was EPIC.  The writers on this show are amazing!

Season 6 is the final season in the series, and it's shaping up as the ultimate Walt-Hank showdown.

Mary Beth, thanks for introducing me to Walter White and friends.  Who knew a high school chemistry teacher with lung cancer could evolve into television's most devious bad guy?  Hope you and Bob are up to date.  If not, MUST SEE TV for your holidays at the cabin!

First Snow of the Season

Nothing too exciting going on here.  We are getting our first snowfall of the year (which is supposed to turn to rain later on today, so ugh.  Mud)  We kept up on our leaf raking, with one last soggy bunch to rake up (Tony took care of them with the lawn mower, genius)

We also discovered our fireplace is REAL, not gas as we thought. Hopefully, the kids will get a load of wood from Grandma and Grandpa this weekend.  Tony, you should have kept your truck a wee bit longer...

It looks like an excellent day to snuggle inside under a warm blanket and knit...

Amazing

My very talented sister (Susna, I'm talking about YOU) knit this scarf.  It's incredible.  I would never tackle this project in a million years.

Hope you wore this proudly all day yesterday!

Awwww

Goodbye Sweet Girl

We're all down in the dumps today...

Lois/Lola/Sissy, the kids' sweet 9 year old lab hadn't been on her game for a few weeks.  No stealing of sticks of butter off the counter, not much carrying around of toilet paper rolls -- none of her usual hijinks.

Then she stopped eating.  Even when we hand fed her chicken and baby food.

So I took her to the lab yesterday for an ultrasound.  We got the worst possible results: an abdomen full of cancer.  After an evening of tears and going over the possible options (of which there really weren't any), the kids took her to the vet's today for the black needle.

We'll miss her a LOT!  She was the middleman between too frisky Lucy and too cranky Walt.  I don't know what he's going to do without his life-long companion.  And of course the humans who adopted her years ago are in mourning at the loss of their friend.

This is the tough part about pet ownership.  Death comes to us all, but we're never ready.  At least she is not in pain and I know she's in Dog Heaven, with all the sticks of butter she could possibly want.

Halloween Grinches

That was Team Plack last night.

We didn't buy a pumpkin.  We didn't put up any decorations.  We didn't get out my wooden hands for freaking out trick or treaters.

We bought no candy.  BOUGHT. NO. CANDY.

And we turned off the porch lights and ignored the one kid desperate enough to ring our doorbell.

Boo.  Not fun at all.  Next year, I'm going to hand out full size candy bars.