Our Time so Far

We have been here now 2 whole weeks. And still no house. Oh well-our time will come. At least we have a comfortable roof over our heads, thanks to Ken's sister and husband. And our kitties are adjusting to life on the somewhat confined side. Now that DSIL & BIL have gone back to work we can let our babies out of the bedroom during the day to roam and stretch their legs. Lexi has gotten confident enough to do that a bit, but Jack still won't come any further than the hall door. We have managed to make friends with most of their animals. We walked Daisy the outdoor dog almost everyday and she looks forward to her time with us. The kitties, both upstairs and down, want pets from us at every opportunity. CoCo the large Cockatoo will walk up our arm and sit on our shoulder at dinner but we still aren't brave enough to try and feed her. Most of the little white mop dogs(Maltese, for those who want to think of them as something other than mops) think we are a poor substitute for their masters but put up with us. Except for Rosebud who I think would love to take my arm off if I get it too close!!

Arriving here in Tennessee smack dab in the middle of a beautiful fall has been truely a gift to us. We have only gotten out on the roads a few times since we have been here but what we are seeing locally has been amazing. The colors of the foliage and the semi-mountainous scenery has been breathtaking at every turn. Even here on their acreage, and adjoining nature preserve has been a showstopper. Many of my walks so far have been out into the preserve, although I do have to watch for hunters who can only be out there on certain days. There is quite a bit of open grass land, some dense forrest and even a nice sized creek with beaver dams every so often. And of course there is plenty of opportunity for gathering materials for natural dyeing purposes. So far I have gathered a basket full of green walnut hulls, a ton of lichen, some mushrooms both ground and bracket, and a good deal of goldenrod. All these will be dried and saved for when I have the time, space and materials to dye with.

There is no shortage of manmade local attractions and we have only begun to see some of those. Here is a picture of the Chattanooga Museum of Art. The building is a combo of an old Mansion and a large, very modern addition. Each section features items appropriate for the building. The mansion side has art and artifacts representative of the age when it housed some of Chatty's founding family. And the modern side houses much more recent artistic endeavors. We enjoyed an exhibit where they gave artists, whose style tended to be realistic, 5 unrelated items to incorporate into peices of art. Most artists submitted more than 1 peice. It was amazing to see the diversity of their work and how they envisioned these items and incorporated them into the work. Reminded me of some of the quilting challenges our guild had done, in none of them were remotely alike except for the 5 items they had to use.

On the needles-The Duck Soup jacket I was working on is done for the most part. Still no pictures. The I-cord frogs that I was supposed to make for the closures are not working out. The pattern suggests using any yarn to make them, from fingering on up to worsted. I used worsted first and the frogs were way to large in scale and hard to work with. I used a heavy fingering and they were way to small. I have no Sport or DK right now so I will have to rethink the closure area. It is too late to add buttonholes but it is possible to use buttons and maybe do I cord loops for the buttonholes. I shelved the project for a day or 2 to think about it. I still like the pattern and just need to work out the kinks.

I just today started my February Ladies Sweater from Ravelry. I am using Nashua Creative Focus yarn and I hope that I like the slight fuzzyness that comes with it. It should prove to be a fast knit and a useful wardrobe staple. I love that it is knit from the top down. The underarm join seems to work out much better for me when I knit top down, rather than bottom up. I promise in progress pictures on this one folks. And don't say-Yeah Right!!

Tomorrow we travel back to middle Tennessee to meet with a new realtor and to see some more promising houses that have come up in the last week. So cross your fingers. We sure would like a house before we wear out our welcome here. Although I think the fact that I cook dinner every night and the animals love us so much may make the honeymoon last a bit longer!!