As you can see, my Harvest Cardigan is moving along, however slowly. You’re looking at the center-front, with the steek front and center, and I’m about halfway through the color pattern. I’m very happy with the way it looks but am still not enjoying the long floats between “panels” of color. Isn’t it pretty, though?

And, no, I have not ordered yarn for Sylvi. In case you were wondering.

You’ll be pleased to know that Chappy is still speaking to me. This is notable because he has a boo-boo behind his ear and apparently I was responsible. When I took him to the vet last week, I noticed that he had some fairly big mats under his ears–not uncommon–so Sunday or Monday, I got the scissors and carefully cut them out. (Really, it’s the only way.) Except–he’s out of the habit of holding STILL when I do this–I’ll tell him to hold still and he will … except for turning his head which, when trimming ear-fur, is tricky. I AM very careful, mind you, but still … apparently I nicked him with the scissors.

Not that he complained. In fact, I didn’t even notice until Wednesday at lunchtime, when I was giving him one, last pet before heading back to the office, and felt the scab under my fingertips. Poor Chappy! He very patiently put up with me putting some Neosporin cream on there–even though it really wasn’t that necessary since he was obviously healing just fine, but well, it’s a Mom Thing. Although, at some point on Thursday, with all the vigorous ear-scratching and greetings, and general enthusiasm (not to mention his own scratching at it), the scab came off altogether and got tangled in his fur, leaving the sore spot looking red and angry, so he got more Neosporin cream. (Thursday was not my fault, though. I’ve been very careful petting him near that ear since Wednesday.) Really, though, he’s fine, and except for its being a little itchy from time to time, it’s not bothering him at all, and he doesn’t seem to understand why I am making such a fuss (grin).

What else have I been doing? Well, thanks to a little help from James and Harry, all three of my blogs are completely current and on the latest version of WordPress. My Knitting Scholar site, being the newest, was only a fraction out of date (something like version 2.6.3 instead of 2.6.5), but Punctuality Rules was using something like 2.2.2, and Chappysmom 2.3.1 … which made for an interesting variety of dashboards–every version looked (and acted) completely differently.

Well! I figured with the long weekend, this was a good chance to get everything current. Now, did you know that there’s a plugin you can download to automatically do the upgrades for you? Yeah, I did, too, but it didn’t want to work for Chappysmom. I had finally gotten my Punctuality Rules site current by using the “Fantastico” option on my cPanel, but when I tried that for this blog, it TOLD me it had done the update, but WordPress was still under the impression I was using the old version … and I didn’t know what to do! I mean, I can tweak small amounts of HTML and I can decipher some CSS, but I am so NOT a programmer!

So, I sent an email to the penmen to ask them how much it would cost to do the updates for me–no design, no extra programming, just get it to the current version of WordPress. Because I know them, and trust them, and I’ve got to tell you, they are an efficient team–they immediately figured out what I was doing wrong (which would have taken me forever, assuming I could figure it out at all) and had it upgraded and perfect within 15 minutes … I even offered James some of my handspun yarn as a thank you. (Because, he knits, you know.)

It’s such a NICE thing, to have everything current, you know?

Especially since I, um, upgraded my Punctuality Rules theme today. I decided to take advantage of the Black Friday offer of a discounted price for the Thesis theme, which I’ve had my eye on for a while.

So, I tweaked it a bit, but it’s still basically a two-column theme … it’s just that the sidebar is on the other side now (grin). Go take a look, won’t you? Tell me what you think?

And, for the record, yes, this really is a great theme. Lots of options. Good Forum for questions. And when/if I decide I really want to snazz it up and make it truly special, yes, I’ll probably ask James and Harry to do it for me. They’re talented (and nice) gents!

Oh, and one other thing–I finally (finally!) got around to announcing the contest winners over at Knitting Scholar. Now I just need to find shipping boxes to mail out the prizes.

Okay–I’ve got to enter my November reading list now …

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