Weekending

 Good Morning!

Whew!  I can't believe it is 8:40 a.m. and I just got up!  I can't remember the last time I slept till after 8 a.m.  Happy New Year!  How are you?  How was your weekend?

Our weekend was filled with rain.  I did manage to stay up till midnight on New Year's Eve.  I went upstairs to bed at 11:30 and then sat up and read till midnight.  Colin tells me that counts!  Ha!  There were not as many fireworks as usual, which is fine with me (not a fan).  And the weekend was a soggy one - misty rain both days and mild temps.  Today is colder...I think the forecast high is only 30 (yesterday it was above 60).  I even saw the snow symbol on the weather map for today, but so far nothing.

Anyway, I didn't do much other than lay around, knit, stitch and read.  Just what I wanted to do.  Oh, and napped and cooked.  That is enough.  Last night I watched 3 hours of TV which is unheard of for moi.  First we watched the start of "Around the World in 80 Days" on Masterpiece Theatre.  This is a book (by Jules Verne) that Fletch and I had read after dinner.  The program was good.  Then we watched the James Taylor/Carole King concert on CNN.  Oh my!  The songs - so many, many memories wrapped up in those songs.  I remember first hearing James Taylor in the summer of 1970.  I was hanging around my brother's apartment in Ithaca (feeling so grown up) and then heading to Vermont to see my new boyfriend.  My friend Leslie and I played "Tapestry" over and over again - it's a wonder we didn't wear out the vinyl.

One thing I did do this weekend was look through the book where I keep a record of what I read and what I made.  Both kind of surprised me this year.  On the reading end of things I read a total of 71 books (and 44 of those I rated 4 stars or above!!).  Way up from my reading slump year(s) (in 2020 I read 30 books and in 2019 I read 26 books).  Fletch and I read 7 of them together after dinner.

• 5 stars:        9
• 4.5 stars:    4
• 4 stars:        31
• 3.5 stars:    15
• 3 stars:        10
• 2.5 stars:        2

We haven't read together after dinner for some time now.  I'd like to get back to that, but the last couple of books we picked have not been good and we kind of fell out of the practice.

Stitching-wise, I finished 6 pieces.

Knitting-wise I knit 17 items!

• One Hat (a gift)
• 7 socks (5 were gifts)
• 2 cowls (1 gift)
• One scarf (gift)
• 1 pair of fingerless mitts (gift)
• 3 dish cloths
• One French Market Bag (really too small though)
• One swatch (gift - my friend Carol wanted a swatch she would put things on to photograph for her Etsy shop

I don't make goals for any of these things, but I do enjoy looking back at what I have done in a year.

In other big news, Mabel is now going outside on her own!!  Woo-Hoo!  She is loving it and so are we.  She is calmer and not bouncing off the walls now.  She comes in and takes a long nap - LOL.  Pretty much she is sticking on the patio.  She watches the birds and explores all the crap stuff that someone has on the patio.  We have some boats hanging from the ceiling (a kayak and two guideboats) and she has had fun getting into them and looking around (and coming out covered in cobwebs!).  Now we just need to get her to give up her litter box!

OK, time for another cup of Joe and to wake up.  Thankfully today is a work holiday for me.  Hope everyone's week is off to a great start!

PS  Forgot to mention that my brother and his family in Colorado are all safe.  Phil and Lynnette did not have to evacuate.  Vera & Kabir and family did evacuate, but their house was spared and they went home after one night away.  Now they have a foot of snow on the ground!  Thank you all for the good wishes for them.  So many were not as fortunate as they were.