It's a New Dawn, A New Day... Okay, it's a new year.

Welcome 2016. I hope all you that may read this had a wonderful, safe, and warm New Year. We stayed in and once again I forgot to even use the box of fireworks I meant to shoot off. Of course, i was in bed and close to sleep by 10:30, so am I surprised at all? I know, some old folks. Shady Pines Ma, Shady Pines.

We here finally are looking like winter. I know, had to wait until the new year to finally get some snow. It's not mice, but I'll take it. Just because it's a new year doesn't mean Sullivan won't carry around whatever big stick he deems worthy of his attentions.

Of course, this morning he had other things to occupy his strange little mind... Masked Capers anyone? This little young one had obviously spent the morning here as he was frost covered on his back but was definitely awake. The sad thing is, I think I smelled him and first and even located him before the dogs. Captain Oblivious Canine? Aren't you supposed to have awesome sniffers? He was nervous but wouldn't get up and move. Don't worry, these are zoomed in, I didn't get any closer.

There was no blood or obvious injury so I left and called the authorities just to notify them that this guy was there as this is a park. There were prints in the snow showing at least one other person and dog had been there that morning already. There were also some rather cool prints that appeared to be a fox hunting a rabbit but they pics didn't come out too well as I only had my phone with me. If I had known it was going to be so gorgeous out, I would have grabbed a real camera.

That was the way to start the day today. Well, technically I started the day getting up at 6 and taking the car in for a service campaign. Then I came home, got the boys and took them out for their morning walk when it was 14 degrees, rather than the 8 my car said as I headed into town this morning. Emmitt's paws appreciated it, even if he doesn't know it.

I really wished I had a better camera this morning as the frost had coated everything.

Perhaps another day. I'll try again tomorrow. Promise.

Do you know the best part of the holidays? I know you do, and if you think hard, you'll know what I think the best part is. Fooooooood!

All that leftover Christmas ham? Sorry Sarah, this is how the grownups eat... We won't discuss the amount of bacon this infidel has consumed this last weekend alone. All that ham goes wonderfully into homemade four cheese Macaroni and Cheese. I'm still eating the leftovers...

Then there's the sides.

Oh, and the left over Mac & Cheese? Throw those thick cold slices in the frying pan and have fried Mac & Cheese. That's why the dogs need walked, to wear off my calories. And it keeps them happy. Win-Win.

Sorry, no photos of the New Years feast. The pork roast, the sauerkraut, the black-eyed peas. Mmmmmm. Maybe that will be lunch here in a few minutes.

Besides cooking, walking dogs, beating on the baseboard heaters, I've been knitting. The vest is done.

The sweater is getting there. Both sleeves are done and the lower half of the body. Now it's time to connect and start the raglan decreases. Kia had perfect timing today. They came to get me for my car just as I was wrapping up the second sleeve.

And this last weekend I arrived at work to find this had been left for me... Yay. Everyone loves a challenge right? excuse me here, but fuck that. The owner of this piece is the grand daughter of the knitter. The knitter thankfully perhaps, has been dead and gone for some time now. So, this afghan means more than it maybe would normally. So, I dove in.

It appears that perhaps a knot was left intact it failed. The lesson here people? Never leave knots in your yarn, or tie them there yourself. Knots fail. Weave your tails in correctly. It may seem tedious, but which is worse, 10 minutes of tail weaving or hours of repairing holes? Once I got things situated and a plan of attack going, it wasn't too hard. The picture above was what I got done Saturday between helping customers and ringing people up. It was kind of a busy day.

And here is what it looks like now. The blue paper clip is where I started the repair, the gold needle the end. It's not perfect, but it will look even better with a washing (which this musty thing needs) and blocking. If you look close, the decreases are now leaning the wrong way in this repaired area. This is due to the fact that the only stitches dropped were straight stockinette stitch and increases. No decreases, so I couldn't absorb the increases in pattern. For non-knitters, this means that every 4 rows of knitting in this pattern, I would have increased by 2 stitches. I should have 4, but by row 5, I would have 6 stitches, by row 9, 8 stitches and so on. I always had to have just 4 stitches by some magic of the knitting needles. Now, looking back, I could have unwound some more stitches to incorporate 2 full repeats of the pattern and accounted for it that, but lets be honest, I didn't care that much. I chose to do a simple mirrored decrease that accounted for the extra stitches and hid the damage to the casual observer. Then I found yarn that blended in decently well to graft the hole at the line of broken yarn after closing the top of the run and on went life. Not perfect, but granddaughter gets not only her knitted heirloom back, but one that's usable and full of good memories with each cuddle. Not worry of furthering the damage. Now, let's hope no other knots are present or fail.

Psssst, I didn't want to frog the whole thing down either because there was a crocheted edging that went around the entire thing that would have had to be pulled out before I started the repair. No Thank you.

Oh, and Midge Fly says "Hi Y'all"