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     The first time I was consciously aware of a child dying was as a young adult and the child of family from church died of illness.  Though I didn’t know the child nor even the adults very well, I cried.  As a new parent myself, the thought of losing a child was incomprehensible, children buried their parents, not parents burying a child.
     Over the years as a school counselor, I was faced with entirely too many incidents of a child dying in a car accident, by suicide or illness, dealing with the grief of a few or huge groups of adults and students who had taught or been friends with the young person lost.
     Living and then working near Blackburg, I was part of the grief support team after the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, then shortly after a murder of one of our students and her mother by an acquaintance of them.
     None of these experiences has made it any easier to deal with Connecticut’s tragedy, for a community of families to have lost so many children makes my heart ache.  I have cried for them and my heart goes out to the community and the families who lost a child or have a child that was fortunate enough to survive yesterday’s tragedy and will have to learn to live with the trauma that they experienced.
     I hope the media will quickly leave them alone and let them heal.

     Christmas knitting progresses, fortunately fairly quickly.    Daughter by love will get mittens and a slouchy beret to help keep her warm as she walks to and from the Metro between home and classes on two campuses.

The mittens are a basic vanilla mitten pattern with Paton’s Classic Wool, Harvest colorway with a crocheted shell pattern at the top of the cuff.  The Stripey Slouchy Beret is the same yarn with the alternate stripes of a solid brown Paton’s Classic Wool.  The photos do not do justice to the colors of the set, nor do they look like they match, which they do beautifully.

     Eldest son is also a lover of Mom’s handknits and he will get a Pepper and Wine hat to go with his black overcoat as he also is a student and walking to and from the Metro bus to campus.

     The last project is the most difficult for me and may or may not actually get finished before it is hand delivered to our daughter several days after Christmas.  As a late teen/young adult, she had a lacy mesh black sweater that she wore over camisoles.  Now living in Florida, she wants a similar sweater for the rare cool days or evenings.  As the original sweater was a store purchase and is long gone from her wardrobe, all I have to go by is a dark photo of her wearing the sweater, standing in front of a dark, very busy background.  I have started the sweater 3 times, the first attempt of a saddle shoulder sweater, quickly messed with the lacy pattern.  Try two is a better choice of a pattern, but after about 6 inches of knitting, I realized the lacy was too bulky looking, even though I am using sport weight wool on size 9 needles, so again it was frogged and restarted with a simpler, lighter lace.  As the yarn is black and my arthritis makes using larger needles difficult except in short stints, I am plodding along on it between other projects.  It will get done, but maybe not by the time we get to her house.

      Yesterday was spring like.  We resumed our riding lessons after a three week hiatus first due to family visiting, then a couple of weeks of the crud.  Though we are both still coughing, we are feeling better.  Our energy levels are still low, we must work on that as we have two ski trips pending after the first of the year.  One we fear might end up being a condo stay with 18 strangers with little or no snow as it is in West Virginia and it has been as warm there as here.  The other is in Colorado and the reports from there are positive.
     A little at a time, Christmas shopping is being done and wrapped as purchased or made.  The house is decorated, though we still need a tree.
    Knitting has resumed, a Florida weight sweater for daughter, her request is lace in black yarn, not my preference, but it is progressing.  Mittens for our daughter by love and a hat our son.

     The spinning wheel has been active also.  I spun and plied 346 yards of light fingering weight merino and silk blend that is gorgeous.  So far, I haven’t decided what it will become, but I’m thinking about Flip Mitts or a scarf for next year’s Christmas gift stash.  It would be awesome to make all of next year’s hand knits from handspun yarn.

     Yesterday was rainy and last night the wind whipped up as a front rolled through, this morning it is winter again with mountain snow flurries blowing around.  Perhaps we may actually have winter this year.

     This morning, hubby was feeling particularly poorly so I turned the pups outside to play away from us in the house.  After about 30 minutes, they were nowhere to be seen, would not come when called and though we live on 30 acres with nothing but farmland around us, we are only 4/10 of a mile off of the road up to Mountain Lake Hotel,, so I began to worry about them.
     My concern increased when after about 15 more minutes, they still had not appeared, nor came when called.  On went the jacket and sneakers to set out looking for them.  The plan was to go look down the bull path to the sinkhole as they often come out of the woods from that direction, then if not there, to get in the car and go check the local roads.
     Fortunately, and unfortunately, I found them, in the sinkhole, Shadow running back and forth through the muddy creek, Ranger laying like a fat sow in the mud beside the creek.  Once caught in the act, Shadow came up the hill at a trot, muddy from the bottom of her paws to the tip of her ears and wanted to launch herself on me.  After finding her leash, I led her to the yard hydrant and hooked up the hose to wash her down.  Hubby walked to the bottom of the hill and retrieved the slow moving hulk of a mastiff to slowly follow him.  While  he was bringing the beast up the hill, I tried to hose down the shepherd.  She danced and jerked on the leash like a puppet on a string, not at all in favor of the cleaning, so I brought her in and tried to bath her in the tub.  She was in no more favor of that and tried to bolt from the tub, spinning and tugging at the leash like a dervish.  Once semi cleaned and not willing to be dried, she was put back outside on a tie down, also not to her favor.
     In the meantime, Ranger was dancing and trying to eat the water coming from the hose, thinking it was all a big game and hubby enjoying playing with him.
     Shadow has not been allowed outside for the remainder of the day or evening without being tied out on a long chain.  She is not pleased with that and I am not pleased with her. It may be a while before she is given free run outside while Ranger is also outside.  We may have to invest in invisible fence or work more on training them as to where they are allowed and to come consistently when called.  If we could figure out how to keep Ferdinand the neighbor’s bull from coming up the path, it would probably keep the dogs from going down it, but so far that has been a failure.

                                                                Warm spot of sun,

     The news is reporting that this is an early flu season and that the strains of flu this year are wicked.  I can attest to this.  What I thought started as a cold over 2 weeks ago, flattened me a week later with pneumonia.  Leaving the doctor’s office with antibiotics and a heavy duty prescription cough medication, I came home to curl up in my recliner with a quilt and a book, which I slogged through between naps as the cough syrup’s primary duty seemed to be to make me sleep.  As I was fighting to get better, my hubby was coming down with what he thought was the cold.  Yesterday, we were both back in the doctor’s office, he being given the antibiotics and cough medication for bronchitis and a sinus infection, both of us being given inhalers to try to help tame the inflammation in our lungs.  Usually by now we have both had flu shots, but as hubby nearly always reacts to his, we delayed  because of household visitors and a trip to Texas for a birthday party for a cousin.   We both have had pneumonia shots, both endured the not too effective shingles shots to hopefully stave that malady, but the flu found us and in both of us, produced secondary infections.
     Rest assured, as soon as we are better, we will get this year’s version of the flu shot and will be in front of the line next year when they are available.

   
     It has taken me 4 days to do 3 loads of laundry, just washed and dried, not folded and put away.  And thank goodness the turkey was huge, soup made and coldcuts leftover from our daughter’s visit, otherwise we wouldn’t have eaten for those 4 days.  My ribs hurt to move, breathe and oh no, not again, cough.  The meds started Monday afternoon and this morning, so far, I think I am on the mend finally.  There have been lots of naps, curled under a quilt, most of a book read, no knitting done.  The dog hair is taking over the house, Christmas shopping and decorating not a priority.
     None of the herbal remedies I took when the cold started 10 days ago did much good this time and I wonder what shape I would have been in if I hadn’t had a pneumonia shot last spring.  The cold was nearly gone on Sunday when I crashed hard with pneumonia.  Not an illness I wish to repeat anytime soon.  It is going to be a while until I feel like decorating and shopping, but at least I have remade the two guest beds this morning and I am about to fold a load of clothes, then I think it will be time for another nap.

     Today, I officially become a senior citizen.  Birthdays at this point in life are mixed messages, thankfulness that I have survived another year and a reminder that the years move too quickly and there is so much left to see and do.
     There is much to be thankful for this birthday, there are many well wishes from friends and families as posts on Facebook, in calls and cards, flowers and dinner out tonight.  This week is especially celebratory for our family, it contains 4 milestone birthdays.  My stepmom turned 70 yesterday, our youngest granddaughter turns 1 this Saturday, our daughter turns 30 next Thursday, and mine today.  It is special that our daughter and her husband, son, daughter and their dog are visiting us for a week from Florida and will help us celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Because they won’t be here for daughter’s birthday, I prepared a Mexican feast earlier in the week for her birthday at her request.  Tonight we go out for Thai, tomorrow we fix the turkey with all it’s fixings.  Saturday will celebrate our granddaughter’s birthday with a homemade apple cake for her.
     Life is good and I hope for many, healthy years to come.

     Bright and early this morning, our daughter, her husband and two kids and their dog arrived after driving all night from Florida.  They will be with us for a wonderful week, celebrating three birthdays while they are here, though daughter’s actually isn’t until shortly after they arrive back home.
     Their daughter is our youngest grandchild.  She was born on Thanksgiving Day last year, so her celebration is the biggest, her 1st birthday.  She is just on the verge of walking, cruising around anything she can grab on to or pushing behind a little cart walker.  She has a little vocabulary already, responding with “Dog” each time she sees or hears one of the 3 dogs.  She constantly points and says “What’s that?”  Her sign language vocabulary is larger than her verbal one.  A beautiful little girl.
     Their son is the youngest of our grandsons, a bright, verbal child about to turn 6.  He has an amazing reading ability, I love listening to him read, sounding our words he doesn’t recognize on sight. 
     Our skittish, shy little German Shepherd has decided that he is ok and doesn’t run and shy from him, allowing him to pet and hug her.  Ranger, the Mastiff loves everyone and has been found standing guard over Nadia a couple of times.
     Today was mostly a stay at home day, to give them some relax time after their drive.  We did all pile into their new Honda Pilot to venture to Target to return a coat for Nadia and get a smaller size.  They were unable to find a coat in Florida for her.    This was after a short trip to the farmer’s market, which is winding down for the season.  Several vendors have already quit for the season and a couple of our friends finished their season today.  There will be a few vendors that continue on most weekends for the winter, with meat and cheese, so our trips will be fewer until the spring arrives with a renewed growing season.
     We will take advantage of the fairly nice day tomorrow and the fact that the hunter’s won’t be out tomorrow to take a mountain hike, maybe with all three dogs in tow.
     Monday we are off to Floyd to School House Fabrics, lunch and to pick up our free range turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner.
     Daughter will be getting knitting lessons, sewing lessons, and soap making experience during the week.
     The two sweaters for the kids, both fit!  Yay.  The Darth Vader and Monkey hat and mitten sets were a hit. 
     We love it so much when we have one of our children and their family here for a visit. 
Life is good.

     Since moving to the mountains, my almost shoulder length hair has grown to nearly my waist, I recently cut 2 inches off, it has grayed around my face and thinned considerably, probably due to the cysts on my thyroid discovered about 4 years ago. 
     I’ve always had a bit of a swayed back which makes me look thicker in the middle than I really am and this has bothered my self image since I was very young and way too thin, no eating disorder involved, quite the opposite, but as a younger person, my metabolism was raging.
     As a knitter, as soon as I felt confident, I started making sweaters for me, worsted weight, top down raglans, usually loose and comfy.  For some reason as the weather has chilled here, and chill it did last night, down to 24f, and I pulled out my wardrobe of handknit sweaters, as I put each one on, I look in the mirror and feel frumpy.  Only one of my handknit sweaters, a fair isle red wood zipped cardigan doesn’t strike me that way.  As a result, I have taken to wearing thin store bought, machine knit sweaters and thin omniheat fleece tops to ward off the chill.  This bothers me with the stack of sweaters I made sitting unworn on the shelf of my closet.

     Every idea, I have to unfrump goes against my nature, I won’t dye the gray out of my hair, my hubby and I like it long, so a short cut isn’t likely.  I have lost weight, so that isn’t the issue, I’m not at this stage of my life going to start wearing makeup, so I guess what I’m going to have to do, is quit worrying about how I think I look and break out the warm wool handknit and enjoy them.  Maybe while I sit cozy and warm in them this winter, I will make a couple of thinner yarn and be more cautious of fit so next winter, I can wear handknits that aren’t frumpy.