I finished my 40th project on the first day in December rather than the last. Pretty darn pleased with myself at the moment!

This is the Nuvem by Martina Behm. This was such a fantastic and easy, comfortable knit! I would knit it again in a heartbeat if I had the appropriate yarn for it.

The ruffles are a different handspun from the main body of the shawl but I think I did a great job on the color match. The fiber match isn’t at all the same, but that won’t be an issue.

Since then, I’ve been working on spinning up the rest of the fiber I used for the edging. However, my wrist is beginning to hurt so I need to find something else to cast on soon. I need a spinning break!

Other things from the weekend/vacation. First of all, I REALLY needed the vacation. It’s amazing to me how exhausted I am during the week but if I’ve got a few days off with downtime, including extra sleep, I feel so fantastic and with it in the evenings!

Both the dogs have vet appointments this week. I’ve barely been blogging so I haven’t really been talking about it much, but Miss Lizzie’s got very little appetite over the past few months. We need to identify if it’s her meds causing the issue or something else, and then we need to come up with a plan to mitigate it. She’s lost too much weight now. And since when it rains, it pours, Rose came home from the dog park unable to put weight on a back leg. I’ve noticed a little bit of limping from time to time in the past, but for a dog who has run blisters into her paw pads before, I just figured she was overexerting herself. Now I suspect we’ve got an ACL tear and while I am desperately trying not to catastrophize, I suspect she’s going to need a pretty big surgery. That’ll be a bit of a blow for us, and tough recovery, and I am definitely stressing over it all. But we should know slightly more on Tuesday if I can get her in to see the vet at the same time as Lizzie. The other issue is very selfish on my part. I’ve never been good with hospitals or surgery or anything. I get nauseated when visiting people in the hospital. Sometimes I almost faint. I get an overwhelming feeling as if I am feeling the pain the person I am visiting is in. This seems now to have expanded to encompass my dog, as when looking up info on TPLO surgery, I get nauseated and lightheaded just thinking about it. So catastrophizing, that’s what I am over here doing. We love our sporty Rose, and we want her to stay healthy and sporty and not be in pain, so we’ll do what we have to, as she enriches our lives so much. But I am not looking forward to this on multiple levels.

I guess that’s it from here, a bit of a downer I suppose. Nevertheless, while the dogs have been a bit of a blow recently, we really did have a nice time off and holiday, and that I am so grateful for!