Here's to a new year! While 2014 held its challenges (don't they all?) here are a few things that caught my attention.
While this isn't a year in review
per se, I am posting some of my favorite iPad photos of 2014. The blogger app is horrendous, so I'm uploading these photos from the iPad and adding commentary from my trusty laptop. Here's to hoping this is seamless, unlike most things iPad and blogger related:
My old orchids - they never let me down. Right now, my three orchids in the kitchen window have grown four flower shoots. Hopefully in a few weeks, we'll have abundant blooms. Did you know orchids like cold windowsills? This is proof.
A pretty snowy
early late March morning. (I checked the date stamp on this photo, and it was March 28). At this point in the game, it was like winter will never end. Never End. But it did, sometime in April...
Ah yes, proof that spring sprang. Lovely apple blooms. Photo taken May 20.
A summer sunset.
I knit a lot in 2014. This is my Rowan Kidsilk Haze Reversible Cabled-Rib Shawl. I don't think we could throw another descriptor in that sentence if we tried. I have wanted to knit this scarf since 1999. To think that was 15 years ago scares the hell out of me!
Another pretty sunset.
And a view over the barn. The sky was so beautiful with pastel clouds and sky.
A double rainbow for your viewing pleasure.
And the other half. Maybe one day, I'll figure out if my digital camera has a wide-angle feature. Or maybe not. I'll just keep taking potato-quality pictures with the iPad.
More scenery. Enough already! Been there, done that!
Big Tessie and Big BobCat. Odin is afraid of Tessie, so BobCat has learned if he takes the bottom bunk, Odin leaves him alone. He's a smart cat...
I called this my Halloween Face sunset.
Odin shows poor Bob undying affection, much to BobCat's dismay. Here, he's resigned to his fate. And Odin doesn't even want to look me in the face...la la la la...pretend she's not there...la la la la...
Ohhh, pretty fuzzy mohair wool, with matching alpaca skeins. I think this is going to be vacation wool. I plan on making my version of Purl Soho's Amazing Seed Stitch Wrap, but at a fraction of the cost. I'm pretty sure this is going to end up in my suitcase. I don't know if I'm looking forward to a vacation, or looking forward to knitting this up. I hoarded a lot of wool in 2014. It's almost shameful. I have a huge Rubbermaid bin full of future projects. I won't even make any knitting resolutions for 2015, because my 2014 resolutions crashed and burned, just like 2013, and 2012 and...forget about it...I'm just going to knit, and that will be that.
Odin's first selfie! I found this on the iPad and had a good laugh.
We went to a Christmas fair and I picked up these mitts because I couldn't resist them. Sewn by a local craftswoman, these gloves are made from a beautiful felted fair-isle Shetland sweater found in a thrift shop. They have a polar fleece liner, and are super-warm. My favorite mitts. The chopping board likewise is made by a local woodworker. Apparently this is
Eric's chopping board.
Eric surprised me this year by returning from an overseas trip and proudly proclaiming that he learned how to make risotto. (Eric doesn't even know how I take my tea, which should give you an inkling about Eric's cooking abilities.) One of our Swiss friends is a Cordon Bleu master-chef, and a remarkable pedagogue. He taught Eric how to make a mushroom risotto that is out of this world. Eric now goes into Italian grocery stores and compares bottles of truffle oil, and could probably write a treatise on carnaroli versus arborio rice. Yes, Eric has turned into a foodie! A man after my own heart! Last night, he made a lobster tail risotto with saffron and asparagus that was my most memorable meal of 2014. Wow. We ended 2014 on a culinary high note.
We had little snow in December 2014. In fact, the above field was completely bare as of this morning, but since then, we've had a little "snow event" as Environment Canada now conveniently calls anything from a flurry to a freeze-the-balls-off-a-brass-monkey blizzard. I'm good with the milder temps compared to last year, and fine with the fact that we have a dusting of snow as opposed to snow banks that are metres high.
On that note, we turn the page on 2014, and welcome 2015 with open arms.
