All is quiet here at Missouri Star. There's hardly anything to blog about, but I may be away from the blog for a couple of weeks, so thought it best to update. Only four more days of work and we leave for Orlando! I'm so anxious to see Ben and Abby and the girls. We'll be there one week – not nearly long enough to be with the grandbabies, but plenty long to be away from home. The older we get, the harder it is to be away from our house and our dogs. Maggie and Kirby will be in good hands, however. Our younger son lives in an apartment attached to the house and he provides great care for the dogs when we are gone. Although mentally handicapped, he is independent enough to be left alone for a week or so and we really appreciate have a live-in dogsitter.
I have to relate a recent incident in his life. Last month he decided, on his own, that he wanted a new job. He's worked at the local Pizza Hut for 8 years – mostly cleaning and chopping vegetables. It's been a great job for him and they have been wonderful – patient with him when he is slow and understanding that his attention span is a little on the short side. He went to the local Walmart and applied for a job. He went to the interview, on his own, and actually got a job night stocking. Alas, it only lasted about 3 weeks and they let him go because he was too slow. The sad thing is that in his current job, the state provided a job coach for over a year to help him learn the job. Because of cut backs in funding, a job coach was not an option for this job. However, we are as proud as punch of him and told him so. We told him he should never ever be ashamed of trying something and failing. He gave it his best and that's all anyone could ask of him. Wisely, he decided not to quit his other job until the Walmart job was permanent, so he still has a job. We are so proud of him! When we adopted him, the Child Development Center at the University of Washington had some pretty dire predictions for him. He had suffered some pretty horrific abuse that caused brain damage. They felt he would never learn to read and would grow into a very troubled teenager with significant anger issues. He now actually reads on a 9th grade level, although his math skills have never advanced beyond about 1st grade. But above all, he is a sweet, kind man with a perpetually happy outlook on life. Everyone who knows him loves him and he has many friends at church who look out for him and make sure that he gets to all of the functions.
Ok, so back to actual knitting content. I actually have an FO to show:
These are simple cabled socks (no pattern) out of Dream in Color Smooshy – Chinatown Apple. A pretty noneventful knit – these will be for me. I ordered more Smooshy from Sonny and Shear, this in the Cool Fire colorway:
This will be for some socks for one of our employees who is battling ovarian cancer. She loves bright colors, especially bubblegum pink and she was admiring some socks I had knit for a friend. I'll be using the Hibiscus for Hope pattern. I believe it is still available through that link for a donation to breast cancer research. Although my friend has a different type of cancer, I thought it was still appropriate and looks like a fun pattern. That will be my plane/vacation knitting, along with this:
These are toe-up socks using Cat Bhordi's upstream pattern from New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I was so pleased with my Coriolis socks that I wanted to give this a try too. So far I think I like this even better. I have no idea what the yarn is – Regia maybe? With some cotton content. It was obviously frogged from a previous project.
I'm taking my laptop with me and hope to have time to blog a little after the girls go to bed. Until then I leave you with a picture of progress on Chenille:
missouristar 