... Here I am! ...

Wow ... has it really been that long since I've updated??

The short story of where I've been:

* September -- was a rough month, lots of back-to-school business mixed in with extreme grieving over my friend Laura, who I remembered later did make it into my blog once. It seems really weird, even now, that life just kind of continued on without her in it. (Her birthday was September 27 of that month, I believe, and she would have been 37.) Oh, and then the Little Girl was diagnosed with food allergies (no, not just milk, as we suspected, but also eggs, chicken, beef, pork, cats and dogs). No knitting, believe it or not! I did, however, get out my sewing machine finally.

* October -- I became the den leader of my son's Cub Scouts -- what, because I wasn't busy enough, right? Then, just as I started to be able to cope with my friend's death without a glass of wine each night and chapped eyes, we found out about the details to her death. Her (ex) husband, the murderer, had been friends with the Big Sweetie for TWENTY FIVE years -- isn't that insane?! The details surrouding her death, suffice to say, were worthy of a horror movie, leading to more glasses of wine and more chapped eyes. This has been a profoundly life-changing event for me, in so many ways. I won't say any more about it now than that, except that all of this will probably re-surface in March when he is put on trial for first-degree murder, and I will most likely be called to testify. Moving on ...

* November -- Things moved on, and we started to return to some kind of normalcy. I picked up my knitting needles again, and I've continued my sewing obsessions. (Why has it taken me so long to discover Amy Butler?) We deduced after a lot of experimenting that the Little Girl really isn't allergic to chicken, beef, pork, cats or dogs. The dog part, at least, we're counting on because we made the decision to bring home the CUTEST DOG IN THE WORLD for Christmas this year (Sorry to those of you who already thought you had one):


Seriously, isn't she a cutie??? We love her so much already, and we won't even bring her home until next week (the Saturday before winter break, giving us 2 full weeks with her before we're thrown into our insanely crazy lives again). We're so happy to be getting this little Bernese Mtn Dog. Though this puppy has started life as a member of the Brady Bunch, we're naming her Callie, mainly because she looks like my calico cats Rini and Chloe, but also because I'm apparently obsessed with a certain TV show (my other top choices of dog names were Izzie and Lexie ... Meredith just didn't seem like a dog name). After the kind of rough year that 2007 has been for me, there's something about putting my energy into some little creature that will love us back that feels very right to me. I think 2008 is going to be great.

And because I already told my Boulder Knitting Guild group about my recent FO, let me give you a peek as well ...

... FO Report: Quant headband, from Winter 07 Knitty, made with Noro Kureyon unknown # using less than one skein, on size 8's, fun and quick and easy project, especially if you knit backwards like I like to when I do entrelac ...

And there's more where that came from ... but first I have to hook up our wireless connection to our computer upstairs (this is taking forever, as some projects do in our house), and then I promise I *will* be back with more Callie news and FO's. (Some day. Hang tight.)