Calendar scarf 2009

Knitting friends, the Calendar scarf for 2009 starts December 1, which may even be as soon as this evening (9 hour time difference).

Remember to download the pattern every day - the calendar is free until December 26, at which time you have to buy it with yarn. This year the yarn is musk ox and is out of my price range.

I'm downloading patterns like crazy. Mostly small shawl patterns and cowls. Here is one of the cowls I'm going to be knitting out of sportweight alpaca, I think. I joined a KAL (knit along) at Ravelry and will be knitting this with a group of people doing the same. I'm going to be busy, busy for the next 4 weeks and may not post much.

Poll closed

And the name is Willow. I think this name really suits her. She's been a delightful kitten. She gets along with both dogs and Theo (who has been housebound due to a paw that was bitten by a raccoon or possum, resulting in 2 lost toenails and part of 2 toes), and Misha will come around ( I hope). I have awakened 3 nights in a row sandwiched between 3 cats. It's been fun!

Willow has a new favorite hiding place, and we're getting better about keeping the door closed so she can't get in. She also likes to play with water from a faucet.



Here's a picture of a hummingbird Lyn took. I can't believe he got the wings in motion!



He really does guard the feeder. He's an aggressive little thing.

Thanksgiving Blessing award

I got the above award from Maddie and I am to pass this award on to 5 of my blogger friends and they in turn are to pass the award on to 5 of their friends. It's a great way to introduce blogs to fellow readers. I have a few interests so not all the friends I name will be puppy raisers.

Pam has a blog that I think has one of the most creative names out in blog land. She is also a fellow guide dog club member.

Another blogger named Pam has a knitting blog that I love to read. Pam knits more than socks and inspires me.

Jen doesn't know me but I know her sister and her blog is just packed with wit, inspiration, knitting and just plain great reading.

Francoise has a picturesque blog of her life and travels. If you read nothing else on her blog, go to the July post titled Part 4. I'm sure you'll want to start at the beginning and read parts 1, 2, and 3, too.

Kate is a fellow dog lover and coworker who just began a blog within the last few months. I love her writing challenges and just love the way she writes, period.

Thank you, Maddie, and I hope you all enjoy the blogs I awarded today.

Edit: I keep thinking of all the blogs I left out. I'll have to post some more one of these days.

Thanksgiving and Visiting Stevenson

Thank you to everyone who voted in my poll. I believe the new kitten has a name by a pretty wide majority, but I'm going to leave the poll up through Monday since I started the poll over a holiday weekend.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving. Ryan and Keri went to Ryan's parents' house and we had Kevin over for a few hours and Tim came home for a 30-minute dinner break since he worked. Kevin, Lyn and I talked, ate, and watched The Planet Earth - the episode about caves. Besides getting claustrophobic, we laughed a lot because of the spooky music and adjectives used in the narrative when some species was about to be eaten. It's traditionally my cue to leave the room when the music starts, but the bad animal this time was a glow worm and I was able to stay in the room. I was definitely grossed out. I can also tell you that I will never be eating Bird's Nest Soup. There was a lot of mucus in this episode (Sorry if that's too much information).

I've been knitting a lot and spent my few shopping minutes on Black Friday at the local yarn store, StitchCraft. I was buying yarn for gifts I'll be making, so that doesn't count as Black Friday money spending. This is usually a day I boycott, but I do make exceptions for local small businesses. No Waldemart (the store that cannot be named) or Target for me.

I started a spooky book called The Owl Masters and am having trouble putting it down. I hate that I have to work tomorrow because I just want to curl up with a cat or dog or two and knit and read. I'm in hibernation mode!

This afternoon Ardella went to her second agility class and this time there were other dogs and people in the class. Though Ardella wanted to interact with the dogs, she wasn't so distracted that she couldn't participate. We did some new challenges - Go to table and sit, a chute (like a tunnel but flat), a curved tunnel, a covered jump and a broad jump. Ardella had some initial difficulty with the chute, but her hardest thing to learn was the broad jump. She did everything she was supposed to do and I'm still impressed with her ability to learn. We ended the class learning "spot" where the dog learns to hit a target with its nose. We didn't quite get that one yet, and it's our homework for the week. Next week the dogs need to hit the target across a room when given the command.

I'm enjoying agility, but I doubt Ardella has the speed to compete. We'll see. We're taking the class as a confidence booster and I think that's working. I'm baffled by the dogs in our class. They're about 80% Labradoodles! I expected to see Border collies and Aussies.

After class Lyn and I drove out to Stevenson to see how far the drive was and what the road was like. It was a beautiful drive, but it took us 50 minutes and there was no rain or traffic to slow us down. We tried a different route back by crossing the toll bridge right outside Stevenson and traveling down I-84. That took us 55 minutes but it was faster and the road felt safer. I don't know. As much as I'd like to be part of a smaller guide dog group, I don't know if the travel time is something I could handle. We'll see. I certainly have time to make up my mind. I might try finding a group in Portland as that's closer than Stevenson, although I think Stevenson is charming and I really like the group there.

Ardella and Annalynn will be working with Cathie Laber, our former CFR, this weekend. I'm looking forward to that.

New poll

We're on day 3 of no name, so I created a poll. Help me choose a name for our new kitten. The poll is on the right-hand sidebar.

Thanks!

Have a great Thanksgiving! I'm working, but it was my choice.

Kitten pictures

Here she is. Lizzie and Mira are other names I'm thinking about.

Names

I can't walk dogs at the humane society anymore because it's brutal on my hands. I asked for another job and took the cat handling class this morning so I could hopefully socialize cats. The preference is that I work in adoption/socialization and there's a potential of socializing dogs instead of walking them. Regardless, I'm starting out with cats one of these days - I'm just not sure how yet. We had the usual introduction to cat handling and then saw a really depressing movie about two animal shelters - one in Los Angeles, the other in Chicago - which followed a cat and a dog that had been picked up and taken to shelters. Only one of them survives. So after quoting dismal statistics, interviewing a clueless public, and showing the dead animal after it had been euthanized, the film was cut off before it ended. We were supposed to take a break. Lots of people were crying and no one got up to have snacks right away. We were rather somber. I was told we accidentally saw the long version and that's why they didn't finish. I asked if anything ever got better, but of course it doesn't. The only redeeming factor is that it was narrated by David Duchovny (Mulder).

So, we took a tour and ended up in the cattery. I know you probably know where this story is going. I stood beside the cage of a 6-month-old kitten named Ballofur who kept reaching out to pat my face. I've followed Ballofur and always liked the cat, but never could figure out if it was a male or female - the web page said male, the card on the cage said female. Anyway, I was charmed.

After I went home I mentioned Ballofur to Lyn and suggested we go visit him. We were supposed to drive to Stevenson to see how far the drive was (I'm considering changing guide dog clubs). The short version of this story is that we never made it to Stevenson - we adopted Ballofur. Ballofur is a female and is one of those kittens that just relaxes in any position you hold her in and she's a typical wild 6-month old kitten that is a lot of fun. I really think she needs another name though and we're trying to decide between Willamina (Mina) or Minerva (Minnie). She could easily fit both, so I'm asking for outside name preference. Our other female cat is called Misha and I thought Mina and Misha or Minnie and Misha sounded nice together (not that they care).

My camera battery is dead. I'll post a picture tomorrow.