Poems, Promotions, Bunnies, and Hats

It's Friday!  After a long and most busy week which included travel for The Professor and airport trips for me, and a new school year beginning, I am looking forward to the weekend and to catching up with friends at Friday Fave Fives.

1.  Some things are just funny.  We spied this guy mowing (well, pretending to mow) the grass near the entrance to the freeway.  Made us laugh.

2.  Last weekend Son #1 was promoted to the rank of MAJOR in the US Army Reserve.  As a chaplain, he carries a heavy responsibility.  This responsibility is one he freely accepts, but sometimes it's hard.  I am thankful that he has been recognized for his sacrifice and service.  The Professor was able to be present for the promotion and pinning ceremony.  It meant so much for father and son to be together to celebrate this milestone.   (Photo compliments of a friend who attended the ceremony.




3.  I didn't fly out with The Professor, but someone else begged and begged to go along.  She was so new that her dress wasn't finished.

But she wanted so much to take a plane and to go visit her new home that I finally relented and knitted like a mad woman all the way down the El Camino Real to the Burbank Airport.  Just in time, with literally no time to spare, I made the last stitch and pulled her sun dress over her ears.  Introducing Alexandra, new companion to our soon to arrive granddaughter.  Here she is happily sharing her first adventure with Bapa. (Note:  you gotta LOVE a man who not only travels with a knitted bunny but takes photos of her IN PUBLIC PLACES.)

4.   Speaking of knitting--I often speak of knitting, about knitting, with knitting, for knitting--I stumbled on a new hat pattern.  The Golden Pear Hat is a free pattern offered by Melissa Thompson on ravelry. Although it is sized for babies and toddlers, it's super easy to adjust and make larger hats.  I think you'll be seeing more of these hats here this fall.  I finished two this week and am about half done with a third--larger than these.

5.  My sister-in-law mentioned a new to me author.  I'm shocked I didn't know about Jill Paton Walsh.  She has written more Lord Peter Wimsey stories in the Dorothy Sayers tradition of LPW and Harriet Vane detective novels.  I read A Presumption of Death and am now cruising through The Attenbury Emeralds.  

I leave you today with a poem:

I Opened a Book

by Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode.

Now nobody can find me.

I've left my chair, my house, my road,

My town and my world behind me.

I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring,

I've swallowed the magic potion.

I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king

And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.

I shared their tears and laughter

And followed their road with its bumps and bends

To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.

The cloak can no longer hide me.

My chair and my house are just the same,

But I have a book inside me.