March Team Challenge: Natural History

I've entered an item in this month's RNEST team challenge (themed Natural History).

I call it the Vines on Moss hat, because I crocheted a vine ornament on a hat knit in moss stitch.  Of course, the whole thing is green.

You should go check out my fellow challengers and vote for your favorite (I hope it's mine!) over at the RNEST blog.

Jude watches the snow

These pictures are from earlier this winter. But I forgot to share them.

Jude was absolutely enthrawled by the falling snow.  So was I, when I looked.

There's the view out our front window.  Brr.  If you look closely you can see cat ears in the lower right.

Zoom in on the lower right.  There's Jude.

Just look at those perky ears.  So attentive!

I love his expression, and the dichotomy of freezing, snowy outside with cozy, warm inside.

Cat pictures

It's been a while since I've included pictures of our kitties. Actually, I'm not sure I ever introduced Penny here. Don't think so. Too lazy to go back and check.

Jude likes my spinning basket.

Yesterday was Evan's and my 3 year dating anniversary. Yay. When we adopted Jude two Augusts ago, the vet told us he was about 6 or 7 months old, putting his birthday approximately in late February. So we decided Jude's birthday was our anniversary, which was 2/22. This past September we adopted Penny, who was estimated to be around 2 years old, or maybe a little less, so we thought she could share Jude's birthday and our anniversary.

Here's Penny when we first got her:

Scrawny little thing.  She was just recently a stray, recently spayed, and she went right to the folded up blanket next to my spinning wheel to chill.  She has since bulked up quite a bit.

She hissed at Jude whenever he dared to make eye contact for a couple weeks, but she's slowly crown to tolerate him.  Now they move pretty much in parallel, almost always together.  Not always friendly, but together.  Kinda like siblings.

Beat that, Geico!

The Setup

Evan and I were working through our taxes over the weekend, and nearly had a joint heart attack (which is funny because he's studying cardiology in med school right now).  We were cruising along in TurboTax, looking at our familiar and reasonable $$$ return figures in the upper right corner, but when we entered the info for Evan's scholarship, there was a $$,$$$ discrepancy between the amount paid and the amount spent, which translated into $,$$$ we had to pay for federal and state taxes each!  Eeek!  When Evan went to investigate his school finances, he found that he owed $$,$$$ that he thought was supposed to be paid for by his loan.  (The amount was similar to the amount of the discrepancy, but not exact.)  This kind of pissed me off, because I had just recently used $$,$$$ from my savings to pay off a significant chunk of his student loans, and those funds would have been very useful right now.

The Situation

So it looked like we were going to have to pay $$,$$$ to the school, plus $,$$$ and $,$$$ in taxes.  Ouchers.  We had been planning on insulating our house, which would cost $,$$$, but that would be impossible after all this.

The Resolution

Evan went to talk with the bursar this morning.  They quickly found that the $$,$$$ discrepancy in his scholarship was due to a payment made at the tail end of December that didn't get processed until January.  So we don't owe the school anything, and we can edit that info in the taxes to remedy the error.  As Evan said, "I saved us $$,$$$ in 10 minutes.  Beat that, Geico!"

Also, Happy Valentine's Day!

B. Russell Quote

Here's a quote that snagged me:

Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.
Bertrand Russell
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

It's true. So how do we rework the education system to de-emphacize passive acceptance without sacrificing efficiency? Or how do professors in upper-level education quickly rewire their students' thinking to promote active learning and questioning over passive acceptance, especially in science, where clear and obvious fact have been stressed previously?

Wild Citrus Scarf

Yay, I finally got this scarf photographed and listed!

I made it with scraps of yarn left behind after other projects.  Definitely happy with how it turned out!

Here are some more pictures:

Belated Christmas Scarf

Once again this year, I didn't have a Christmas gift for Katherine (the choir director/my boss at church) ready in time.  So I offered to knit something, whatever she would like.

After some thought, she said she would like a scarf.  She only had one scarf in vivid pink, but her two winter hats were blue and teal, so she never matched.  So she would like a scarf to match her hats.

I chose some Simply Soft yarn by Caron from JoAnn Fabrics (again), because I always seem to go yarn shopping at awkward times when my LYS is closed, and I wanted something soft, machine-washable, with high yardage, and in a very particular colorway.

I felt very clever as I designed this scarf.  One of Katherine's hats has a repeating 6-stitch cable pattern, and the other hat (which I knit for her last year) has a mock cable pattern.  So I incorporated both in this scarf.

I had procrastinated on weaving in the damn ends, though, and only on Sunday morning, when I planned to bring along the scarf to give to Katherine, did I remember!  Luckily, I had a couple moments to spare, so zip, zip, in went the ends, out came the camera, I wrapped up the present in tissue paper and yarn, and ran out the door.

 

Katherine seemed to like it. :)   Happy ending.