goodbye, old girl

Rest in peace, Miss Moxie.  We're so glad we were able to give you a cozy home and an occasional tuna dinner during the last 10 of your 18 years on earth.

Cozy Day

Moxie has the right idea.  I walked into the living room this morning and found her just like this, all ensconced in her cushion and blanket cave.

It did indeed snow this weekend, so it's a good thing I saved those raspberries. We also lost power in the middle of the night. I'm told there were flashes of light and popping sounds when a few misfit branches, weighted down with snow, fell on the power lines outside our window. I was sound asleep and blissfully unaware.

We were all geared up for an adventure day (complete with coffee made over a camp stove!), but the fridge whirred back to life at about 10:30. 

That's ok.  An adventure day with a football game is fun too.  And the furnace is working again, so Moxie can go back to her regular perch on the back of the couch, blanket-free.

At least I meant well.

I had grand plans to make at least a gesture of equity on this here blog with respect to our furry friends. Cecil gets all the glory these days. He's young and energetic and adorable and, most importantly, he's new. So when I looked across the kitchen this evening and realized that Moxie was just hangin' out next to the fridge -- which is just odd and quirky enough to make her totally fit in around here -- I broke out the (cell phone) camera and figured she'd earned the spotlight for a moment.



She was super appreciative. Can't you just see the excitement on her face? I mean really, if this isn't elation, I don't know what is.



And for all my good intentions of giving Moxie a little respect and her fair share of blog time, Cecil in all his adorableness managed to worm his way into the next frame.



They're both cute. Oh, the dilemmas we have around here.

Regarding the Cat Formerly Known as Patience

Cecil: *whine*  *whine whine whine*

Me: Hmm.  Does he have to go out?

The Awesome Husband: Maybe, but he'll have to be patient.

Me (speaking for Cecil): I'm a do-og.  I don't have opposable thumbs... or patience.  Don't be stupid!

Me (speaking for myself):  You know, that was Moxie's name before I adopted her.

The Awesome Husband:  *pause*  ... Why would anyone name a cat Stupid?!

Annnnd *scene*.

Progress. Impressive.

We now apparently have matching pets. For a few minutes each day, anyway.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Part One

I realized last week that my list of blog links (for the two of you not reading through Google Reader, please direct your attention to the left margin) is woefully out of date... and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Until I get myself in gear and revise it (more often than not, I'm posting from my phone), I'll have to spread the word about the fun blogs I frequent some other way, and I'm super excited about the idea I came up with to accomplish that.

Enter the Copycat Project.

I write about a fairly broad range of topics. (To those of you who miss the days when this was more of a traditional knitblog, I apologize. Also: please come back, ok?) I'll be using this disjointed, haphazard nature to my advantage -- aha! play to your strengths! or at least, to your unavoidable characterisitcs! -- and perhaps broadening my horizons as well, as I take a page from a fellow blogger, write a post of my own that ties in with the subject matter of their site, and link back to them so you all can enjoy their stuff done right. By them.

Make sense?

Ok, first up: Kelly over at Tearing Up Houses. Let me be clear: I'm focusing on a very distinct subset of her posts to imitate. I've not recently knocked out any walls or purchased any real estate (all of which is fascinating to read about, though). No, no, I'll be tapping into her charmingly random pet portrait concept.

And so, I present to you the Great Furry Peace Summit of 2010:



Not much happened after this photo was taken... which is exactly how it should always be.

Phoning it in? Yeah, maybe.

Once again, I notice it's been a while since I've broken up the text of my ramblingness with some photos. Because there's not a whole lot to tell you about today (guess what? baby string beans attached to plants with no remaining leaves don't turn into full-sized string beans. sigh.), today's post is heavy on the pictures (if you consider two "heavy," that is) and light on the narrative. Or relevance, really.



This one was taken at a recent festive gathering. There are some lovely shots from the day in which we're smiling normally and neither of us are blurry, but I like this one the most because it's how we operate more often than not. Hearty laughing pretty much every day. And, come to think of it, eating and flailing, respectively: that's pretty accurate as well.



Too perfect. The best part is that immediately following this expression, she likely found herself scurrying away from something terrifying. Like an ant. Photo credit: Mr. Metabolism.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Meow.

It's official! The Awesome Boyfriend now has a live-in girlfriend (me), and a cat (Moxie).



Here she is perched on the couch, which she's determined to be her favorite place in the new digs. She just made the trek here from my old house last night, and after a couple hours of tentative exploring and general slinking-around, she seems to be realizing that everything really is ok, and that we won't be subjecting her to any more carrier confinement in the near future. That, and I think she's still coming to terms with the Furnace Monster that she thinks is lurking in the basement.

Overall, though, yay, she's settling in well, and her arrival makes the Moving In process official. I still need to sort and move a lot of tangibles that are still over at the other house, but with Moxie here now, there's no affirmative need for me to stop by every day for food/water/litterbox/attention purposes.

On the knitting front, I'm about halfway through Surface in a white wool blend. By the end of the day, I'm likely to be done with the body, and will have the sleeves, collar, and button band left to go.

Also on the schedule for today, I'm hoping to go running outside. It's supposed to be reasonably comfortable (just under 40 F - not warm by any stretch, but not painful, particularly once the cardio gets going), and I need to get myself used to running outside before that race I've got coming up. My concern, though, is that I've been all sneezy and eye-itchy and miserable this morning. At 7:30 this morning, I was fine. By 9:00, I was a sniffly, blubbering mess. I've got my fingers crossed that whatever it is that's attacking my sinuses is indoors, and that running outside will actually make me feel better. In the meantime, though, it makes it difficult to find the motivation to actually GO running. Sigh.

Had to happen at some point

If I'm going to have a knitting blog, I suppose I have to post the obligatory cat picture, right? I was trying to get a shot of my Coachella tank, but Moxie was uncharacteristically hamming it up, so there you go.


Anyway, yes, that there's an almost finished Coachella, but I need to re-knit the whole thing. It fits, but I don't like the way the collar drapes (it's supposed to be all drapey; I just don't think it looks good on me). So I'm going to do the whole thing in reverse - instead of knitting from the top down, I'm going to knit it from the bottom hem up. That way, when I get to the top I can bind off some center stitches and create a different neckline. Wish me luck!