In which I feel fortunate to have had a very busy week ...

Hi y'all! Wow, I fell like I took an extended break and it's only been FOUR DAYS since I last blogged. (That feels a lot like what you might say in confession, doesn't it?)

Its been a pretty busy week for me. I've been knitting (Christmas stuff, of course, and the stray baby antennae hat!) but I've also been working a lot, trying to get my annual agenda together and catching up on all of the stuff that was cast aside so I could hurry up and get on out of the office for the holidays. Now that we're back in the swing of things I'm finally knitting something for myself! Yay!



This is the Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery. The yarn is a fingering weight from Farmhouse Yarns called Bo Peep's Not Just For Socks, it's a wool/nylon blend. The best part, though, is the colorway. It's a fantastic mix of adobe/turquoise called Sedona.





It's already twice as long as the part you see here. Lace knitting is still totally new to me, so it's challenging, but I'm enjoying it. It's kind of addictive, really, though very slow going. I'm going to pick out one more lace project to do before I start on the February Lady Sweater. I really need to make a pair of flip-top mittens for myself, first, and then one for my sister in law. Oy.

I'm also in the midst of a simply watchcap for one of my half-dozen or so BILs. It's just 2 by 2 ribbing in a chunky weight yarn. Nothing interesting...



The highlight of this week, though, was a little fieldtrip I took through downtown on Wednesday. I took my camera with me on my lunch hour, and just strolled, took pictures, and contemplated...



I saw a guy filling holes in a historic building...



I saw a busy street that made downtown Dallas seem like a real city landscape...



And a busy DART station, too ...



And I hung around the neat architecture of Thanksgiving Square ...



And its very cool water features ...



At which I met a very curious pigeon ...



Who thought the water feature was pretty cool, too ...



And then we both looked up at Thanksgiving Chapel, which has one of the coolest stained glass windows on the planet ...



And surrounding the chapel are some old water features that have some neat texture ...





And a mosaic by Norman Rockwell ...



It's a good place to sit and contemplate, like this guy did ...



And watch the Akard DART Rail station ...



Or spy the historic structures that seem buried beneath the towering facades of modernity ...



And walking back from my field trip, some guys asked me to take their portrait, and I obliged ...



And I began to think about how old buildings can really talk, and they aren't too hung up on appearances ...



And how "modern" in the '60s is still in some ways considered "modern" today, though our conceptions of "modern" have obviously changed since then ...



But night after night, the globe of Reunion Tower lights up and shines patterns and signals to the Dallas landscape, even when a few bulbs are burnt out, but in the daylight it's all beautiful...



And sometimes you have to get outside of your comfort zone to find some truly amazing people, like this guy. I think his name was Randy. He has some kind of crippling disorder that keeps one of his legs from working and one of his hands from opening, and yet he kicked his wheelchair across an intersection to approach me while I was shooting.

"May I introduce myself?"
"Sure." I said.
"My name is [Randy]."
"Nice to meet you."
"May I pay you a compliment?"
"Depends on what my husband would think."
"Oh, I just wanted to tell you that I think you are exceptionally beautiful."
"Wow, why thank you, Randy. It was really nice to meet you."

And all this happened in a city I have yet to underestimate.