Wrapping Up The Week

Hello!

It's Friday and that is a wonderful bit of news.  This was a short week for me with Monday as a holiday and then being off to take Fletch in for his cataract surgery.  But short weeks always feel busy and those days at work seem to be more full of "stuff."

Thank you all for the well wishes for Fletch.  This was his second cataract surgery (he had his right eye done a year ago).  The surgery went well (though it took his eye longer than normal to dilate, so even though his surgery was scheduled first, the doctor took another patient ahead of him).  Even with that little delay, we were at a diner for breakfast by 9:30 a.m.!  His eye was a bit uncomfortable that day (he said it felt like he had a cardboard splinter in his eye), but Advil seemed to do the trick as well as the two kinds of drops he has to use 4 times a day.

That evening we went over to Mailing's parents house to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  The New Year (Lunar New Year) is actually Saturday, but Mailing's Dad was leaving for Japan yesterday, so we celebrated early.  Her parents had already made ALL the dumplings by the time we arrived, so no dumpling making this year.  The dumplings were much prettier too compared to what we make - lol.  There were more side dishes, but here's a shot of the table with the dumplings on it:

They were so delicious - as were all the other dishes (steamed pork, fermented cabbage, broccoli, kimchi).  The "creatures" at the end of the table are rats!  That's because the New Year will be the Year of the Rat (just for the record, I am a Snake [not pleased with that] [my element is water] and Fletch is a Pig [his element is fire].

Mailing had made a delicious cake for dessert.  Made with sticky rice and both black and white sesame seeds.  DELICIOUS!!!

Before dinner, Zhongren (Mailing's Dad) showed us a house he had recently made:

Isn't that so cool?  He got the idea after visiting Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia.  The roof is made from grasses in their yard.  The doors in front have rice paper in them and they slide back and forth.  It reminds me of the Japanese Garden in Fairmount Park that we visited.  Here's a shot looking inside:

The bundle inside is actually rice and the red figure is a Rice God.  It is very, very cool.  He is such a creative person.

A fun evening for sure.

Yesterday morning I took Fletch to the eye doctor for his post surgery appointment.  All is well and the doctor is pleased.  He does not need to go back until February 4th (and will be able to drive himself at that point).  So, I ended up getting into work late yesterday and was slammed for the balance of the day.  Lots of financial reports, etc.  This morning I just have one financial conference call at 10 and the balance of my day looks good:)

I did manage to finish Fever on Wednesday and enjoyed it.  The end of the book sort of petered out for me, but overall I did enjoy it.  And, I've started Disappearing Earth which is good so far (I've only read maybe 25 pages or so).  There was knitting accomplished too:

I'm enjoying using the variegated yarn for the cuff and foot for a change.  This is sort of a dark picture, but you get the idea.  (The embroidered pillow on the chair is one my Mom made years and years ago.)

I'm looking forward to the weekend.  It is supposed to rain (and rain hard) on Saturday, but I have plans to meet up with Dee and I know we'll have a great time in spite of the weather.  Whatever your are up to, I hope it's a good weekend for you.

Weekending and a Bird Question

Good Morning!

It is a snowy a.m. here, but not much - only an inch or so.  I think tomorrow will be the dicey day as sleet and freezing rain are forecast for tonight.  Today, though, the snow is powdery and light and the roads are not bad.  We had/have a 2 hour delay at work, but I'm here already as I have conference calls at 9 and 10.

Howard, from our IT department, loves to bake - he finds it relaxing.  Most Mondays find some kind of treat in our main kitchen from Howard.  This morning there are sugar cookies in the shape of hearts.  Sweet!

The weekend was fun.  We celebrated the Chinese New Year at Mailing's parents on Saturday.  Here are dumplings in the making:

Everyone (even Colin!) makes beautiful dumplings, nicely pleated.  Mine are the ones in front that are a mess - lol.  But, they all tasted good.  And the table with the beginning of food being brought out:

Everything was delicious.  Something new that I had was Chinese cauliflower - delicious!

Just in time, I finished my Sockhead Cowl Saturday night.

The picture of the cowl on me shows the color of the yarn more accurately.  I cast on 160 stitches and knit 30 rows of ribbing, then 60 rows of stockinette and another 30 rows of ribbing.  It really is longer than necessary, but will keep me warm.  I did not wear it today since I was already dressed in a turtleneck and wool sweater.

The first KAL sock (Sunday Swing) is now at the point where I need to pick up the gusset stitches.  I brought the Hitchhiker to work in case I have time to knit at lunch.

Like so many of you, we enjoy watching the birds come to our feeders.  We have a thistle feeder, one for sunflower seeds, a peanut feeder and a suet feeder.  A good variety of birds find their way to our yard in the winter - Flickers, Downy Woodpeckers, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Cardinals, various Finches, Wrens, Doves, Blue Jays, Sparrows, Juncos (my Grandmother always called them snow birds), Starlings, etc.  This year missing from the action are Chickadees (one of my favorites - and my Dad used to talk of feeding Chickadees from his hand as a child) and Tufted Titmice.  In prior years there have been a ton of those two varieties.  I'm curious about why they are not here and wondering if they will show up (hoping they will).  Have any of  you noticed a change in what birds are around this Winter?

Well, time to get ready for my conference calls.  Hoping everyone's week is off to a great start!

Monday Rolls Around Again

Happy Presidents' Day!


Not a holiday for me, unfortunately, but on the bright side, traffic was very light driving in this morning.  The weekend was good, but Monday seems to have come rather quickly.


Friday night I was exhausted and ended up going to bed early and slept 10 hours!  It was wonderful.  Saturday morning was taken up with a visit to our tax person.  We are still missing some info (didn't it used to be that all paperwork for taxes had to come to you by the end of January?  Apparently that is no longer the case.).


We ended up going out Saturday afternoon to grocery shop due to the weather forecast.  And, sure enough, right around 4:30 p.m. it started snowing.  Very wet and heavy snow, but it was beautiful and pretty mild out.  This is what it looked like around 10 p.m. Saturday night:

I love when snow blankets the branches of trees.  Sunday was mild and most of the snow is now gone.  Fletch did walk around 11 p.m. Saturday and said it was very ethereal looking - lots of fog and beautiful snow (I was sleeping again - lol).


Meanwhile, it was the Chinese New Year (Year of the Dog).  Colin and Mailing went into the city Friday night to have dinner with friends and spend the night.  They planned to go to the parade, but it started much later than planned so they only saw a tiny bit on their way to dim sum:





Finally, there was some knitting over the weekend - Sleeve #1 is complete:

I'm thrilled - the sleeve is the perfect length (and I won't be running out of yarn!!).  I've decided to weave in all the ends from the colorwork in both the yoke and the first sleeve before I cast on for Sleeve #2.  There are So Many ends!!  I really don't want to finish the sweater and be ready to block but have 50 million ends to deal with, so I'll get the majority of them done now.  The knitting went relatively fast, but was a pain with the body of the sweater twisting around in my lap.  And, using size 9 DP needles for the cuff was hard on my hands.  Luckily it's not a ton of knitting.  Hoping to get the ends woven in tonight after yoga and then I can start the second sleeve tomorrow.


Now I've got to get to work.  I expect it to be an easy day and am hoping to get out of here early - maybe with enough time to weave ends before going to yoga!


How was your weekend?