New Little Ones In Our Lives

As mentioned a couple posts ago, we lost our beloved cat, Squeaks.  Our hearts were shattered.  We decided to have her cremated.  We now have her ashes, as well as a paw print and clippings of her fur.  We'll always remember her and know we'll never have another one like her.

As the days went by, though, we felt the house was too quiet.  It didn't take us long to decide to adopt another kitten.  We wanted another tuxedo so I started looking around at rescue agencies.  We settled on a little guy that we have named 'Buddy'.

He just turned 8 months old. I looked up what his age would be in human years and it said he'd be in his early teens.  His behavior is right on par with a teenage boy.  He is a bundle of energy, getting into things that he shouldn't, climbing and exploring, and always hungry.

We are all still adjusting to each other.  He is more physically affectionate than Squeaks was.  He purrs very loudly and doesn't mind being held, usually.  I do have a few scratches from when he hasn't been in the mood.  Like Squeaks, 4am is the preferred time to wake us up and demand ear scratches.  Needless to say, the house isn't too quiet anymore.

We have another new little one in our lives.  Our oldest daughter, Kristin, and her husband, Michael, became first-time parents on December 22.  Henry was born at 6:20am.  Kristin needed to have a C-Section because he was breech.  Fortunately everything went smoothly.

He is absolutely beautiful and doing great.  He's eating well and is adjusting to the outside world.

This was the best Christmas gift.

Here he is wearing a little bear hat that I knit for him.

I also made him a Chunky Benji bear.  Two more are in the works for the other grandkids.

I also made him a stocking for our fireplace.  I need to still make stockings for my son-in-laws.

2025 was a very busy year.  I didn't do as much crafting as I had hoped, and as a result, I didn't post as much here on the blog.  I'm hoping to be better about both in 2026.

With that, I'll sign off now and wish you a very wonderful Christmas season and Happy New Year.

First Fractal

 Just a quick post about my first fractal spin.  I think I got this roving from my sister.  My spinning skills are a bit rusty.  The twist and thickness aren't the most consistent.  But it turned out very lovely.  I haven't bothered yet to figure out how much I have.  I'll do that when I decide on a project for it.

Squeaks, You Were The Best!!!!

 At about 7:15 am yesterday morning, Sunday, November 30, 2025, we lost the most precious, sweet girl.  Squeaks was sleeping in bed with us, made a few strange noises, and then passed away.  We are heart broken.  The vet said it sounds like she had a heart arrythmia that went undetected.  She was only 7 years old.  Far to young to be gone.

Here are highlights of her favorite things.

Havinug her belly rubbed.  She's lick my hand to show her love.

Watching the birds outside

Napping in bags and boxes

Watching nature shows

Looking beautiful for the camera

Helping her mommy with sewing

Inspecting the latest yarn acquisitions

Keeping an eye on the squirrels and chipmunks

Staring off into space, comtemplating life

Using mommy's laptop

Watching knitting podcasts with mommy

Deciding which yarn is best for a project

Making sure mommy is keeping on track with her crocheting

Comforting mommy when she wasn't feeling well

Making sure mommy was never alone

Napping in the sunshine

or in front of the fire

We hope she passed happily to kitty Heaven.  She was active the night before with her usual evening zoomies.  She played with some toys.  Had treats,  Slept in front of the fire while we watched football.  And then crawled into our bed when we went to sleep.

I'm doing a lot of searching to see if there had been signs of an issue.  Looking back there might have been, but as my niece who is a vet told me they probably weren't strong enough signals to prompt a call to the vet.  What she thinks happened is something that goes undetected in many cases.

We had Squeaks for not quite 7 years.  We loved her completely and we are grateful for the love she gave us.  We wished we had had at least 7 more years with her.  We adopted her, or rather she adopted us, on March 9, 2019.  She has been the joy of my life since then. I miss her intensely and can't stop crying.  She was the best.   

Rest in Peace, baby.

Visitors

 Nature provides the most interesting things.  It is amazing how something as fine and invisible as a spider's web can hold droplets of water many times larger in diameter.

Hundreds of droplets are visible but the web cannot be seen.

Like a string of pearls magically suspended in air.

Each droplet refracting the deck railing behind.

This past month has flown by.  In fact, this year is going very quickly.

I'm enjoying watching the birds that are coming up to our feeder, or in some cases, below our feeder.

A momma duck brought her babies up to the house to eat the seed that was dropped to the ground.  She started with 11 chicks, but sadly only 7 made it to the fledging stage.  They are now all grown and moved away.

A wide variety of birds frequented the feeder this summer.  Some acted like we were the intruders when we went out on the deck.

One night in July, after Ed went to bed and I stayed up to knit, I noticed the back security light kick on.  Peeking out to see what triggered it, I noticed this guy also under the feeder.  I don't imagine he was eating the seed.  Maybe helping to keep the insects at bay.

We had an unexpected visitor stay with us for a week.  Last Tuesday when Ed went out into his garage, he found a racing homing pigeon sitting there.  The bird had a couple bands on his legs.  We determined one is a tracking device and the other was an ID tag.  After getting the numbers off the second band and doing a little internet investigating, I found who he belonged to.  After a week of taking care of him, his keeper was able to come down from the Cleveland area and claim him.

While he was here we gave him food and water and let him hang out in the garage.  We left the garage door open in case he had the urge to fly home on his own.  Unfortunately, he seemed to like it here and stayed.  One day he even started following me as I left to go down to the mail box.  I think I have imprinted him.

He's gone now, back to his loft.  We are hoping he recovers his strength and becomes a champion racing pigeon.  We have a mess in the garage to clean up.  He was not a tidy house guest.

I will admit, I am missing him.

Missing someone is something I'm going to have to deal with more.

When I worked my previous contract at another state agency, I had the priviledge of working with a wonderful young lady named Rathna.  Rathna and I became quite close.  She called me her American mom.  We haven't worked together since 2021, but we have remained in contact.  In the fall of 2022 Rathna married a wonderful man.  They bought a house. In May of this year they had a beautiful little girl. They were settled into a nice life here. Unfortunately, as they say, all good things must come to an end.  Rathna has stopped working because she had a very difficult pregnancy.  Her husband's work engagement ended at the end of June and he has not been able to find another contract.  Because they are both here in the US on work VISAs, they are required to go back to India by the end of August.  They hope that someday they will be able to come back to the US.  It's not likely that they will ever be in my area again.

My heart is broken.  I'm not sure if I'll ever see her again.  We've promised to keep in touch.  We'll do video calls so that I can watch my adopted grandbaby grow.  As a going away gift, I made this Chunky Benji.  I'm giving him lots of hugs so that he can share them with Rathna after she's gone.  I'm meeting Rathna and her family on Friday to say 'Good-bye'.  It makes me want to cry just typing these words.

I always knew in the back of my mind that this might happen someday.  It doesn't make it any easier though.

Besides Chunky Benji, I've been working on a couple other things.  

I started a Summer Vibe Tee, but it is now in timeout.  It is a simple pattern, but I just kept making mistakes or dropping stitches.  It was frustrating me too much so it is put away until next spring.

I cast on the Harrisburg Pullover.  I bought this yarn a couple years ago at one of my LYSs.  I'm calling this my candy corn sweater.  If I work a few stripes each night, I'll have this done in time to wear this fall.

Competing for my attention are baby knits.  Grandbaby #3 is due on Christmas Day, so I've begun working on things for him.  First up is the First Impressions Pants.

There are a couple other babies joining the world soon that I should make something for.  But my new little guy gets top priority.