Big catch-up post

Has it really been over two weeks since my last post? Goodness. Time flies when you're having fun and working hard! I might have to resort to a bullet-esque post, a la Sheepish Annie:

Labor Day weekend: Much fun! Greta Jane at Ivory Needles came up for a visit, so Coffeeboy and I showed her the sights. I think she might have planned on a little more knitting time. Instead, we went to an Apple Festival (which didn't have enough apples, IMHO), wine tasting (really not very good wine), eating (The Laughing Seed, again) and listening to music in Asheville, hiking off the Blue Ridge Parkway, blueberry picking, talking, cooking, knitting, etc. Possibly the best part? She found me an excuse to see her AND a ticket to see the Yarn Harlot in Atlanta next week!!

Dissertation proposal: Last week I sent my advisor a 2-page overview. He wrote back saying, essentially, looks good but vast, show me more. So since sometime last week I turned those 2 pages into about 24 pages of actual dissertation proposal. I was aiming for about half that, but the longer version turned out to be the only way I could articulate myself at this point. But yay! I have an actual draft of a dissertation proposal done! This is excellent!

Libraries: I am very impressed by the ILL service at Coffeeboy's college. They get things here really quickly, which has proven quite beneficial over the past two weeks.

September weather: It's cooling down a bit, more towards the lower temperatures these mountains are known for: low 80s, 70s. I haven't quite felt the first breeze of fall, but it will come, as evidenced by this tree we saw on our recent hike:

Knitting: Oh, you mean frogging and floundering and flourishing? Because there's been a little bit of all three these past couple weeks. Remember the shawl with the psychedelic colors? Frogged. I decided (with a little help from Greta Jane)it was just too psychedelic, after all. Instead, I'm looking for the perfect woodsy, earthy combination of blues, browns, and greens. Any suggestions?*

The socks? Floundering (well, a little bit). One is done, but another pair has yet to make it onto the needles.

But what about flourishing? Well, I decided that a male someone is going to receive a (modified) Irish Hiking Scarf for one of the winter holidays.

As you can see, I've been enjoying knitting cables on size 8 needles. Oh, the treetrunks! They fly so fast! Here's one ball of yarn out of two, almost all the way knit!

Phew! There you go! I think I'm all caught up, for the moment!

---
*I have something rather specific in mind: sky blues to deeper blues, forest greens to sunlit greens, dirty brown to the browns of tree trunks, with maybe the whites of clouds peeking through, dyed in such a way as to look nice knit up into a shawl with a leaf motif.