Sad

The Gowey family lost another beloved member tonight, the last one of the older generation. Doug's Aunt Kathy passed away this evening due to complications of a broken hip. She broke her hip about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and she never really recovered from it.

Aunt Kathy was the one who gave Sara her early appreciation for tea. She had small teapots (brown betties) that the girls (her great-nieces) were always allowed to use when they'd come over to visit. She had a marvelous doll house that was the anticipation of many a visit for the kids. She and her husband Hal (who passed away many years ago, not quite sure how long ago) would make the kids wonderful homemade toys - dolls, small knitted items, trucks, boats and many miniature items. Every Christmas would have a new intricately designed Christmas card.
She also had a very dry wit about her and she knew so much about the family history.

Kathy and Hal never had children of their own, so really took an interest in their nieces and nephews and their families. She will be greatly missed by us all.

Knitting still goes on here, but I've just taken a "too busy" break from blogging I guess. I hope to be more consistent soon!

"Darlin' it's betta, down where it's wetta"

And the rain just keeps coming. I don't know how many inches so far today, but wow. I ended up not going into work - I tried getting down Juanita Drive towards work this morning and got stuck in standing traffic. Apparently there is quite a bit of flooding in Kenmore, and then also in Lake Forest Park. I called into work and Deb and I decided there would be enough warm bodies there today for me to turn around and go home. Deb called back later this morning and said someone else had gone my same route and it took them 3 hours. It usually just takes me 20 minutes. All around me are flooded roads - Kirkland, Bothell, Kenmore. Wet, wet, wet.

Doug called earlier today and the parking lot where he works was flooding. The rain will let up for 15 minutes or so, and then we are back to torrents. I'm glad I live on top of the hill, away from the ravine!

So, I'm home today, drinking tea - checking king5.com for reports and catching up on knitting.

Stay dry and warm!

It's raining....

It's pouring! We have had quite a weekend of weather around here - two inches or so of snow on Saturday, and then the temperatures quickly rose 10 degrees and it's been raining buckets every since. There are apparently quite a few mudslides around town, and many roads are starting to be closed due to flooding. Great. We should be getting a windstorm sometime this afternoon too. I didn't have a blog last December when we had the huge storm, but I can tell you it was a mess. And it can be a bit scary (and most likely stupid!) driving underneath huge fir trees leaning over the road.

So what have I been doing during my time under a rock in November? I definitely have been knitting, but nothing really has been finished. Patrick came home for Thanksgiving, and tried his sweater on. I had worked and worked to get it up to the underarms. Now, he's very athletic, and likes his clothing to be more profile fitting. No baggy clothes for him! So, I made the size small, and got to his recommended 17" long from the underarms. Tried it on. Drat - it needed to be another inch or two bigger around. So, I spent two days powering through restarting the sweater. It's now 8 stitches bigger around, and 18 1/2" to the underarms. I've now started the sleeves - we'll see how that goes!

I also finished a pair of socks for my brother. These are out of Lana Grossa Mega Boots stretch in color 719. Looking at the skein I had, I thought there was just browns and greys in the mix. There is actually a section of blue in there too. Hope he likes them! He doesn't understand the merits of handknit socks, so we shall see.

Also new in the mix are a whole flock of sheep!


I really like the Fibertrends sheep pattern. There are two at the shop that I made a few years ago. Really cute with a waxed linen string around their neck and a rusty star. Sort of reminds me of the old German sheep. These are destined for my sisters-in-law. (Psst - Eliza! Don't tell!)

I still have 2 pairs of socks to make, one more fetching glove, a scarf of some sort out of the new Manos silk blend (ooo, yummy!) finish Patrick's sweater, a SeaSilk wrap for my mom and finish one more block on an afghan. Whew!

Day Late....

Happy December 1st! Although today is really Sunday, I had really wanted to post yesterday, just was out all day and busy last night.

In our family, December 1st has been the day to kick off the Christmas season. I buy a wreath for the door, the Christmas dishes come out, we have a nice dinner and it's okay to start putting out decorations and play Christmas music. When the kids were at home, they would get their advent calendar at dinner. Sundays in December are always a nice sit down dinner, and we even get dessert!(we never have dessert!)

Last night, we had a smaller version of what I've done in the past. Doug and I had been out shopping all day (we are trying to find a new loveseat/couch for our living room) and time was getting short to make dinner. I ended up making Butternut Squash Risotto with Kalamata Olive bread from Trader Joe's and Steamed Asparagus. We also had some pink champagne to drink. Dessert was to have been lemon tarts, but we were too full!

Happy December 1st!