Updates and Randomness

You may noticed the the blog has returned to its normal look (i.e., all posts have the pale, pale pink behind them, so they're readable). I posted a message to the Blogger forums this morning, but didn't get any sort of reply in 8 hours, so I reapplied the template. Of course, I had to re-do my sidebar and reinstate Haloscan comments, but it wasn't too much of a pain, and it solves the problem.

Remember the Mind's Eye yarn I got from Rebekah? I finally took a picture. Here it is, basking in the sunshine on my balcony.

Pretty, no?

One of the five catnip mice was for Harley. Here she is, trying to play with it and her favorite bouncy ball at the same time. (She loves those little balls and carries them around in her mouth. The other day, I woke up to find one in the bed!)

This afternoon I went with friends to a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. It was on a farm between Oxford and Kalona. There was a beautiful cutting bed where you could cut flowers to take home, brick oven pizza, home-made ice cream, and vendors. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera. One vendor was Betty Shreeves, whose husband is a librarian at the Main Library. Betty dyes, spins, weaves, and knits, and sells yarn under the name Lone Tree Wools (no website, though). I bought a couple skeins of her yarn.

On the way back, we stopped at the cheese factory in Kalona. They both make cheese -- you can watch cheese curds in action! -- and sell it. One of my favorite things is a spinach salad with apples, walnuts, and raspberry dressing, with white stilton with apricots sprinkled on top. Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to find the apricot stilton here in Iowa City -- until today! Not only did the cheese factory have it, but in smaller hunks than I could get in San Antonio, so I won't be as likely to not finish it before it's too old. They also had white stilton with lemon and with blueberries. I bought some of the lemon version, too, which I had heard of but never seen before.

I have several of these little guys who like to play in the plastic drain pipes that extend my downspouts. Some people call them ground squirrels, while others call them chipmunks. Whatever they're called, they're awful cute!

And, finally -- the weather here has been so.unbelievably.gorgeous lately! I'm so excited to be able to sleep with the windows open, and not run the a/c all the time. I also don't seem to have as many allergies. Of course, in San Antonio, allergies are pretty much year-round, while they may be more seasonal here.