I woke up to an unusual sight this morning.  Sunshine.  Yep.  The big yellow burning thing in the sky has finally decided to show itself.  I am thrilled.  While it hasn't rained in the past three days, it's been very grey.

Thanksgiving here was good.  The food was good, the company was better.  At one point, there were three spinning wheels in my living room all whirring along at the same time.  I'd insert a photo here but I've lost them somewhere on the computer.  My old laptop automatically saved my photos to the same folder each time.  This setup does not and I closed the file before I moved them to the assigned folder and now they're lost somewhere among the electrons.  I'll wait till Pk comes home from his morning "rust hunt" at the flea market and see if he can help me find them.

In meantime, Em brought her wheel down with her and Kate brought hers down from her room and we all spun together for the first time.  It was cool. There was spinning and laughing and conversation.  Patrick wanted a photo of all three together and I managed to take a couple.

They left around 10:00.  Jim and Em had to work on Friday.  Pk and I sat around for a short time and then went to bed.  We were tired.  I figure we're getting old.  There was a time when we'd sit up till all hours.  Now, we're ready for bed by 9!

Yesterday was a 'pajama day'.  Clothes were donned but no one left the house and we did as little as we could get away with.  I made turkey soup with the carcass (and the stuffing inside the carcass and the left over gravy- I throw it all into a big pot after dinner.  The next day, I add water and simmer for a while and then strain it.  It makes a wonderful broth) and spun the last of the alpaca for Pk's sweater.  I hope it's enough.  I'm not experienced enough to judge but it looks like it might be.  It's beautiful and will make the kind of light drapey sweater he's looking for.  I've swatched it to see how it will look and I love the silvery grey color.  I'm going to use the generic sweater pattern from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Nancy Bush.  The way she's set it up, it doesn't matter what weight of yarn you have, the numbers are all there.  For someone like me, that's just about perfect.

Today is laundry day and then Pk and I are going to the grocery store to get the fixin's for fruit cake.  Yes, fruit cake.  We love it and make our own every other year or so.  The recipe makes 4 loaf sized cakes and we wrap them in cheesecloth soaked in rum and put 2 in the freezer and eat one immediately and save one for Christmas.  This is a baking year since there are none in the freezer.  If Em and Kate are lucky, we'll give them each one to take to their own homes.   I have an enormous ceramic bowl (big enough to bathe a baby in) to mix it in.  With a dozen eggs and 8 cups of flour and all the other stuff, it's a stiff batter.  But it's sooooo good.  

Yay.  Pk came home and voila!  He found my photos and showed me where they are.  So, here's the spinning wheels.  That's Kate spinning on her wheel, Em's wheel is there on the right and mine is back by the window. 

And here is the alpaca (on the unmade bed) for the sweater.  I guess it technically qualifies as a fo.  I have finished the spinning part.  I don't have any other fo's around.  Since I have been flitting from project to project, nothing is getting finished.  I did finish a sock last night.  One monkey sock.  It's such an easy pattern to memorize that it's my mindless knitting.  I started the edging on the shawl (thank you Kate for remembering how we did it!) but that requires some attention.  There's no hurry since there's no deadline for any of this. 

Other than the spinning and knitting, the last few days have been lazy ones.  Today there's a little work to be done.  We have to move the walls of the pool out front to be taken away and Pk is going to clean up the yard.  I have some cleaning for the holidays to finish.  There are some lights to put up and some decorating to do but hey, there's 27 more days until christmas, right?  No hurry.