Recovering from a Rainy Sunday

What do you do when its the middle of the day on Sunday, but your front yard looks like this?

And your backyard looks like this?

You knit, of course. This Sunday I turned on Garrison Keillor and broke out the hidden motif scarf I'm making progress on. It was a great way to spend a day - warm coffee, yarn, entertaining stories and the sound of rain on the roof. And wind chimes in the yard - it was really windy. Even the sound of the rain couldn't drown out the chimes.

Can you see the hidden motif? An alien? It's really hard to get a picture of it by yourself, but I love watching the alien form as a I knit and purl my way along the pattern's chart. It's addictive.

But, what else is a rainy day for? A three and a half hour nap, of course. (What? You don't call over three hours of sleep a nap?) And then I went shopping for soup ingredients.
Mmmh. Soup. It was good.

Little Punky Woofster

Neither Gwen nor her Mama are particularly punk, but our punk friend from Punky Woofster loves us anyway. So, she made Gwen a stylish new collar from her collection. Gwen said she'd be the mini model for the collection, but she was feeling tempermental today. We'll try again later, and with a collar that doesn't match her coloring quite so closely. But, it's such a pretty collar and I love it on her, so I couldn't resist showing you the first attempts at modeling photos.

Presenting, for your viewing pleasure, Little Punky Woofster!

Happy Easter

I had a lovely Easter.

I rolled out of bed at 6:20 to make it to Sunrise Service. (Easter simply calls for Sunrise service for me, despite my lack of enthusiasm for mornings.) Alex goes with me many years, but I didn't wake him this year since we had such a late night Saturday. So, it's 7:00, 45 degrees and damp, and I'm sitting alone at Easter service. I recently switched churches (haven't even decided if this is a permanent or temporary switch), so I don't know anyone and I've only ever spoken to one of the handful of people who turned out so early. I'm feeling very cold, a little lonely and not very Easter-ly. And then I look up and see a hawk soaring above us and lighting on the Church roof, facing the service. And me. All of a sudden I remembered the hawk when Grandpa died. For weeks after he died, we saw a hawk all over the county. And when we went out on the river to spread his ashes, a hawk followed us the entire time. We associated that hawk with Grandpa, and we said he was watching over us through the hawk. I haven't thought of that in years and had stopped associating hawks with Grandpa. But, when I saw that hawk at Easter service, I suddenly remembered. And I felt better. I felt like I had family with me. It was a lovely, if very cold, service.

When I got home, after a nap, I told Alex about it. A few hours later we went to Aunt Kathy's for the family dinner. Everyone was there, relaxed and happy. We had a great visit. My cousin's family is relocating to Texas in two weeks, so it was particularly nice to have a long visit with them. Several of us sat out back, by the lake and the fire, visiting. And Alex turns to me and says "Look, there's a hawk." Sure enough, a hawk was soaring over head and then lit in a tree by the lake, looking towards us. I couldn't help but think Grandpa was watching over us, pleased to see the family together and happy.

It was a good day.


Happy Easter, Grandpa. I love you, too.