Box Contents

And here they are, the long-anticipated contents of the box! I was sick and taking antibiotics on my birthday, so it really brightened my day.

Now that the cold is gone and I can taste things again, the Werther's Original won't last long. I love Mary Engelbreit, and who knew there even was such a thing as Beanie Babies 2.0? Uh... cute stuffed animals and online stuff? I sens a new obsession coming on.
And of course there is yarn -- Opal sock yarn. I love Opal. Regia leaves me cold, but Opal does such interesting self-striping stuff.
But the best part of the gift is Volare, a lace shawl designed by Rosi herself! It's gorgeous. I'm torn between knitting it from stash yarn and ordering a skein of the Kauni the original was knit with. I've never tried Kauni and it's my birthday and I was going to order something from Little Knits anyway...


While I was contemplating the implications of my yarn buying decision, Merlin developed an interest in the box contents as well. He was licking and sucking the Werther's bag... I guess they're not kidding about making the stuff with real cream!


The box, however, has become a cat toy. The game goes as follows: Morgana gets in the box, her brother creeps up on her from the outside, then he bonks her in the head with his paw. Cat wrestling ensues. They love this game.


The cats and I would all like to than Rosi for the wonderful gifts. I hope you like the box that's coming your way (a bit late... oops) just as much!

Oh, one more thing... getting bonked on the head repeatedly must have ticked off Morgana more than we thought. We bought a cat teaser with a long tail of feathers, figuring she'd love to chase it around. And we were right. Less than 10 seconds after we pulled it out, Mr. Batty was holding a stick with a few pathetic feathers dangling off of it.


The rest of the feathers were in Morgana's mouth. Oh, well. That toy didn't last long.


Anyhow, next time, there will be knitting, I promise. I hope everybody is having a great weekend!

Vacation, Pt. 2

Well, this took longer than expected! It would appear that I brought a bad cold and some other stuff requiring antibiotics back from Florida (along with a whole bunch of manatee-shaped goodies). Anyhow...

One of my favorite places was Tarpon Springs. It's predominantly Greek, it's the center of the sponge fishing industry in Florida, and you can get the most incredible Greek food. Best spanakopita ever! Here is me in front of a boat... and if you're wondering why most of my pictures are of me in front of things, it's because Mr. Batty took the greater part of our pictures.


We also went to the Aquarium in Tampa. We have a big one in Boston, but the Tampa Aquarium is all about local fish, so it was totally different and well worth seeing. But even if it had been boring otherwise (which it wasn't), this little guy would have made my day. Look at him, can you tell what he is? That's right!

Nanananananananananananananana Batfish!


We then spent the night at a hotel with a lovely view and had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant that was aptly named the Restaurant D'Amore. Yes, I get sappy sometimes. The food was incredible and we spent a good 2 hours there while it was pouring outside. Then we went back to our room and watched 10,000 BC, which we expected to be bad, but it was really, really bad. I don't dare think about how bad it would have been without the entire bottle of wine we'd just had with dinner.


And when we got home, this was waiting for me. A birthday package, sent by the wonderful (and talented... look at that pattern!) Rosi.


Just wait till you see what was in it! Oh, I know I'm evil for leaving you with a cliffhanger, yes I am...

Vacation, Pt. 1

And now, without further ado: my vacation. Well, not entirely without further ado -- this is a knitting blog, after all, and I need to show you the awful case of Second Sock Syndrome that has befallen me. One toe up, one top down, two completely different socks. And I almost cast on a third, not in any way related to either one of the socks below!


Ahem. Anyhow, we went down to Florida to visit my mother-in-law. We did some family stuff on Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday, Mr. Batty, my sister-in-law and I went to visit Homosassa Springs. I love manatees as much as I love bats, they are so big and cuddly-looking! The state park has several manatees living in it, and we visit them every time we're in Florida.

They are so cute. They have the most adorable faces, and all they do is float around and eat...


...and cuddle.


I wish people would stop tooling down the rivers in their awesome motorboats. These poor critters just want to hang out and enjoy life, and then some idiot with an enormous sense of entitlement runs them over with his spiffy boat. It's a horrible, horrible thing. Some people want to take the manatee off the endangered species list, but there are only so few of them left, and they are so wonderful. I think the world would be a less beautiful place without them.

On a less depressing note: there were flamingoes. Pink and tacky-looking, and more than slightly embarrassing. Standing around all pink with one leg in the air... they crack me up.


There were lots of other animals, and we had a great time walking around outside. Then, we picked up my mother-in-law, and we all headed out to this wonderful local ice cream place. Below, you see one of the reason for my impressive weight gain, given that we were there for only a week.

Chocolate face. Yum, chocolate.

I'm back!

Mr. Batty and I are back from vacation, and I have so much to show you! We just got in today, though, so I'll get some much-needed rest and tell you all about it tomorrow.