End of Knitting Sabbatical!

My unplanned knitting sabbatical is OVER! Yay! Now, don't get too excited. The majority of my knitting needles, a number of precious yarns and various critical notions and patterns are still lost in the mail, but I am moving forward anyway. No need to dwell on the very uneasy feelings I have for the USPS at this time, I say. I still have a set of dpn 1's and 3's, so I am sticking with that. I also bought some 13's since I knew that I didn't have any of those in the lost package and I wanted to dive into the wide and wonderful world of felting.
Anyway, I am not sure how much knitting I am actually going to get done since I am not quite in the groove of the 40 hour work week just yet, but something is definitely better than nothing. Here's what's up so far...

Felted cozie for my Kleen Kanteen - now I can put hot tea in!

Fingerless mittens in progress - my first colorwork!

What knitterly blog post would be complete without a picture of a cat?

New House!

So, I have a new house in which to live! Also, it is filled with lovely new roomies! Here's what it looks like. (Photos of actual housemates pending.)

The Front. Stephanie, one of the roomies, calls the house The Unibrow. You can also see the giant pile of mulch that we got for free! For now, it is just a cedar-y smelling welcome as we plan how/where we will actually apply it to the yard.

The Living Room. So the good news is that the house has lots of big, beautiful windows. The bad news is that that makes it really hard to get a good picture. We are still working on sorting out furniture that will accommodate us and our guests. Two chairs for six people... not working.

The Backyard. We have a yard!! Garden plans are brewing.

My room! I am SO excited about the yellow/white color scheme! The room is serving me well so far. It is nice and bright, even though the window is north facing and we are way up here, latitude-wise, and it is winter.

Human Habitat

I spent today volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. Other than the ice fog, the weather was amazing, and I only had to defrost in the car one time! This group volunteer activity was organized by the Michigan Alumni Association of Portland, and is the first non-football game events of theirs I have attended. It was fun, and I met some cool people. We think we might get together for Habitat regularly, and I have decided to try harder to make it to a monthly young alumni get together they host.
My main job of the day was measuring and sawing 2x4's and 2x6's for the walls the group built today. I also hammered studs, carried alotta stuff (some quite heavy), learned about crowning and met the homeowner! We even got food, which we were told not to expect.

Lots of brand new walls - all from one day, and it's only just past lunch!

yeah, I didn't really use that

triumphant Wolverines at day's end