In His Steps

Douglas, Chynna, and our friend McKenna went out to Gardner Village. In the month of October, they fully deck out in a witch theme every year and every weekend is Witch's Night Out, so we went in costume! Chynna. Douglas. McKenna. Me! We were very scary. I love the decor, with tons of pumpkins, witches, cats, and bats literally everywhere we look. Including the doll shop's patio. More beaked carnival masks! The Pumpkin Witch. The castle with its DJ and dance party. I had to get a chocolate dipped caramel apple. It was so good. It was even more fun at night, with all the lights in the trees... Overall, a fun night with fun people, surrounded by amazing costumes and sales all around. The ambiance was definitely the best part.

This weekend Spousal Unit and I took on the final stages of moving--we went through the electronics pile and the last of his untouched bags of personal affects. It was really hard this time. We didn't know what worked and we both had some instances of "But I always keep things--you never know when you might need them! I've always been low on computer parts; it feels backwards to toss them," and more. Finding recycling centers and being willing to say goodbye to items that have been with you for years... it's not easy. It gets easier with practice, yes, but the first few times are a bit like losing an arm. I've spoken a lot this year about the good vibes of removing junk and clutter from my life. I can find things easily. I don't have to look around and see piles instead of carpet. I don't look at an object and wonder where it came from or why it was there. Everything I have right now has a purpose and a space it's allowed to occupy. If ever I ...

The time crunch for Christmas hand knits has begun and with it, my crafting blog posts have petered out. I am working hard on crafts, but I do not have anything I can post at the moment, nor do I know when I will again have my normal Wednesday craft posts returning. I'm hoping to have some doll knits soon-ish, but again, I have no ETA. For now, I'll be keeping to my regular Monday updates with new personal posts until I have something to show!

Happy 300th Post to my blog!!!! In the past year, Spousal Unit, Douglas, and I have been hard at work to make our yard, especially the side yard, up to our standards. We're... nowhere close--but!--we're getting closer. The front yard with the irises in bloom. We built a rock sifter because our soil is... well, it's clay and rocks. The guys built it and were quite proud. Our next step was to begin removing the diseased trees and leftover stumps from the previous ownership. We wanted to keep this cherry tree, but the roots were rotting completely. It left a huge hole in the yard. You can see the white mold in the hole here that afflicted the cherry tree. We're working to improve drainage and soil quality to prevent this kind of infection. There was an ornamental plum tree here right next to the driveway and it was also clearly diseased and cracking the driveway, so we took it out. The cor...

When you do handmade gifts... it's never too early. I started making these in August and finished before September. These will be sent to family with their Christmas cards and gifts. I used the Holly Berry yarn I spun first. A nice, sizeable stack going, with one in progress. Laying the completed ones at this stage out with the silver bamboo yarn I spun now being used. I didn't have any handspun yarn left that fit the holiday theme of the star ornaments, but I did have some remnants of sparkly red yarn, so I used that to round out the amount I felt I needed. This is the complete set, though if I need more I can easily knit up another one in an hour or so. I made this stocking because Leia stole the one I made for my Mom a couple years ago, so this one should be uninteresting to my Mom's cat, and should replace the one she lost. She's also getting one of the stars, of course. ^_^