Yep, that’s a word. In fact, it is the perfect word to describe this dog.

Let’s look at that face from the other side, shall we?

Boh is actually using his paws to support all those wrinkles on his face. Being jowly is tough. It’s a wonder he’s able to get through the day.

I started another handspun hat last night. This is the seaman’s cap, and I am using my first 3-ply handspun: dark bfl from the Spunky Club in the myrtle colorway.

I’m starting to think that it might be more accurate to name this month “hat-tober” over here at Chez Rooster…

I have a busy day ahead of me, but Boh will likely be doing more of this.

(Note the pile of knitting projects in this particular corner.)

I never get tired of taking pictures of this dog while he sleeps, which is a good thing: he seems to be napping 90% of the time.

I started working on the first ply of the second skein of my Crown Mountain Farms brown bfl. This is a sign that I’m feeling better — over the weekend and throughout this week, the treadling motion and sitting up straight at the wheel seemed like too much for me. It felt good to sit down and spin a bit just before bed last night. (Yay!)

Boh and I have big plans to catch up on reading/writing, tackle a big pile of grading, and make some knitterly progress on a few things this weekend. Happy Friday!

[Lots of Boh pictures today, folks, and minimal knitting. Oops.]

I managed to knit a few more inches to the next buttonhole yesterday, which means it is time to begin the waist shaping. I do think I’m feeling even healthier today, which means I can no longer justify the knitting to reading and writing ratio I’ve been employing over the last few days. (On the whole, a good thing!)

Now, onward to that ridiculous dog.

(Note that my 28-thirty features prominently in this particular photo. I intend to wear it today as well, as it really does add just the right amount of warmth on these overcast, windy days.)

The snoring was particularly loud, due, I think, to the fact that Boh’s face and feet are propped up against the back of the couch.

Are you taking my picture again? Really? Come on.

Well, fine. Take all the pictures you want. I’m ignoring you. See? My eyes are closed and I’m making my silly snoring sound again. (Note that back ear.)

We hope you’ve enjoyed this Boh interlude. We’re back to our regularly scheduled Wednesday — which will require a second cup of coffee.

When the boy said this to me yesterday, I rummaged through the cabinets for a box of spaghetti. It wasn’t until he asked me how many eggs we should use that I fully understood what he was suggesting…

We (I should really say he) loosely followed Alice Waters’ pasta recipe in The Art of Simple Food. I brought my parents’ pasta maker home with me several months ago with the intent to do this sooner. I wish I had! When it was time to run the pasta through the machine the last time to cut it into noodles, I realized that the accompanying pasta rack was way in the back of the cupboards, behind all of my loose containers and lids. No problem. I think the boy said something like, “If only you had some, oh, I don’t know, yarn in the house…”

Tada! Dishcloth cotton to the rescue. Let me back up to show you the rest of this scene:

Somebody is hoping to get lucky by hanging out underneath the noodles.

While we (and by we, I mostly mean he) prepped noodles, a fresh sauce was simmering away on the stove. These noodles were incredible, and this recipe is definitely going into the regular rotation around here.

More knitting/spinning content soon!

Excuse the rooster-still-in-her-pjs-photographing-herself-in-a-dirty-mirror nature of these pictures. (Yup, still abusing the hyphen.)

I know these pictures leave something to be desired, as they don’t really give you a good sense of the actual knitting, but I love this sweater. For laceweight yarn, it is moving quite quickly. I’m past the lovely center back gather and plan to log a few more inches at a lecture this afternoon. Hooray!

In less happy news, this guy has not been feeling so hot the last few days. Here’s what he looked like on Wednesday: swollen eye, puffy ears. Boo.

After talking with the vet, it seems like he was having some kind of reaction. The swelling has gone down, and with the help of some antihistamines, he is almost back to his sweet silly self. Here he is, napping in the morning sun:

I’m hoping he’ll be up for a frolic of some sort this weekend, as the forecast is for sunshine and relative warmth!

Wednesday is the day I get to stay home. I have no obligations calling me to campus, but I tend to have the most important book of the week to read — often for a meeting Thursday morning one-on-one with my advisor. These are the books that tend to speak to me, and these meetings, while often incredibly challenging, leave me with a feeling of affirmation that this is what I want to be doing. That part feels good.

The actual process of reading a book for a Thursday meeting? Time consuming, because it needs to be read carefully  (and should be, given that it is more relevant to my fields than most of what I read in my other classes). It is so easy to read 20 pages, only to realize that your mind was wandering, and you didn’t really catch what so-and-so was getting at in chapter 3. That does not quite cut it during Thursday meeting, so I’ve taken to using Wednesday to get other things done during the reading process in order to make sure I’m paying attention. All this to say that, despite the fact that I have no actual pictures of the reading process, I  can show you lots of the things I got done yesterday, in between chapters:

Hung out with the dog:

Baked oatmeal-cranberry-walnut cookies, based on Deb’s recipe from earlier this week:

Worked more of the foot of the sock, in 5 or 6 row increments throughout the day:

After a particularly long chapter, I took this guy to the dog park:

What a ham. I also managed to do laundry, bake a loaf of bread, and have an ichat knitting date with a dear friend. I realize that this post makes grad school look like a piece of cake, but I stand by this particular approach to Wednesday: solid, focused reading, a chapter at a time, interspersed with productive tasks (laundry, errands, food prep) and fun (knitting, playing with dog) helps things to stick better, and means I don’t waste as much time losing focus/drifting off/etc. Note to self — do this more!

Apologies if the blog is getting a bit repetitive! These days I feel like my schedule looks a lot like this:

Read (a lot). Knit (a little). Repeat.

Time to pour another cup of coffee, read the epilogue, and make some thoughtful notes for my meeting.

I know it’s dark, but I really like this photo — the randomness of the backdrop, the light streaming through the front door, the bright red bookshelf that is mostly empty now — it works for me. I realize, though, that you might actually want to see the sock, so here’s another shot:

I love this sock. It fits perfectly, and the yarn really makes the heel stitches pop. I can see several super simple short sock pairs (say that 5 times fast) in my future. You know, once I knit the mate to this one.

Another Monday morning sleepy dog picture for you — I absolutely adore how ridiculous Boh is when he is sleeping. We did a lot of frolicking this weekend — so much so that Boh refused to budge from the couch ALL DAY yesterday. I even had to coax him towards the door to go outside. He just wanted to lounge, sleep, dream (translation: twitch) and sigh. Life is hard when you’re a dog.

Life is also hard when you are a sleepy person who has to go to work on Monday morning…but I do think there is time to kitchener that sock to completion before I go.

May your Monday be filled with sunshine and coffee!

“Are you okay? You didn’t post this morning.”

These were close to the first words I heard from a friend from both blogland and the real world this evening as we gobbled up salmon fish and chips, drank beer, listened to music and discussed issues of critical importance, like font choice. (I have Helvetica here, courtesy of Netflix.)

I didn’t post this morning mostly because my pinwheel, though ever growing, looks the same. I finished my second ball of yarn, and while winding a third just before our dinner plans, Boh decided to help me with the knot that appeared at the end of the skein:

Yes, that’s right. Help.

When faced with two options: (a) rescue yarn or (b) take cute pictures, I tend to choose (a). Tonight, I chose differently, deciding that this was funny enough to merit sacrificing the last 15 yards of the ball. I mean, it does seem a little unfair that Boh doesn’t have any of his own yarn to play with…

Yup, life is hard. 5 whole days of playing non-stop with your friends can make you dog tired. (Stop me now.) Boh and I re-settled ourselves into my little house, went for a lovely run, and planned an evening of hunkering.

Netflix, the dog, and a hat project. I actually cast on for the Beaufort Hat last month, knit most of the inch of ribbing, and then realized that I needed those needles for something more urgent. (Not that I can remember what.) I put what I had of Beaufort on waste yarn and tucked it away. I went to pick it back up again, I decided to just rip out the little I had done and start over to ensure evenness in the ribbing…or something.

I’ve made it through 3 or 4 pattern repeats, and I really like it. The pattern is easy to memorize and it moves quickly. I’m using  Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted in a slightly lighter/brighter shade than pictured. This is for a friend who requested a hat. Though she’s seen the blog, I don’t think she reads it regularly, so I’m going to risk it. (She’s heading to Argentina this week for a well-deserved vacation.) I should have this ready to send to her by the time she returns (and maybe enough yarn for one for me, too!)

Short, early post today, folks. This guy, also known as the animal (must insert photo pronto)

woke me up in the middle of the night with a horrible rrrripp-ing sound. That’s right, he was yanking the polyfill out of my sleeping bag, while I slept in it. He has been in close proximity to this particular sleeping bag for the last several months, and apparently, last night the temptation became too much for Boh to bear. Luckily, I had some ripstop patching tape handy, so out of bed I leapt. I switched on the light, cursed a bit and got to work.

It’s not knitting content, but it is crafty. The blues are a better match than they look in this picture, and the hole was by no means a clean job. He must have been gnawing on the nylon for awhile before I woke up. Sigh. Onward to the before/after pictures I have for you:

This is yesterday evening’s sunset — thick, reddish clouds hovering over the mountains.

And this is what I awoke to — the second time. We haven’t had snow on the ground in the valley since before the holidays!

Alright. Off to work on generating some visible knitting progress and listen to the latest episode of Stash and Burn before work.