I unpacked the rest of the boxes of breakable stuff today. Now that the china cabinet has been moved into the guest room upstairs (it cannot go into the dining room because the dining room walls are lined with plate racks that are lower than the china cabinet is high, and we are not willing to yank those off the wall for a piece of furniture that is only ever used for display purposes anyway), I could finally unpack all the candles and candlesticks, and all the remaining teacups and saucers and plates and things that have been languishing in boxes since May. I’d used most of our cloth napkins and table runners to wrap the breakables in, so this endeavor means that after they’ve all been run through the wash, we’ll have cloth napkins available once more.

There were not enough cloth napkins to wrap everything, of course, so unpacking produced a small mountain of slightly wadded newspaper. During the unpacking process, I just tossed it onto the floor, intending to gather it all up later (along with the empty boxes) and take it out to the recycling bin. But the cats had other plans and have spent the day randomly sauntering into the guest room and then pouncing on the paper, or diving underneath the paper, or falling asleep amid the paper – in other words, neither of us had the heart to remove all the paper, not when the cats still find it so entertaining.

Richard washed a sink full of dishes and vacuumed the floor, and I made a pan of pumpkin brownies and scrubbed down the kitchen counters and the toilets, and between the two of us we managed to cross a few more things off that list by early afternoon, and by then it was too late to care about any of the others, because there was a knock on the door and my knitting group showed up, needles and yarn in hand, and we proceeded to assemble all the squares everyone’s been knitting into something resembling a baby blanket. Or rather, they assembled, and I knit frantically, since there were extra squares needed beyond what had already been made, and by the time they were done, I’d whipped out two and had made it halfway through a third, and the blanket was as assembled as it could be with missing the few remaining squares, and it’ll be up to me to finish them all off.

It was fun to have them all over. Richard’s had friends and Nanowrimo people over, and we’ve had our families, but this is the first time any of my friends (aside from my knitting mom) have seen the new house. We all sat around the table and chatted, and Rosemary and Tangerine wove around our feet and occasionally tried to steal yarn, and it was a lot of fun.

Then Richard headed off to another Nanowrimo gathering, leaving me to fend for myself for dinner, and all the knitters headed off towards home, except for my knitting mom who didn’t have dinner plans either. So we went to 33rd Street Cafe and she had butternut and apple soup which was surprisingly good for something so predominantly squash, and I had a wild mushroom and goat cheese pizza and even though I admit to being tempted by the vanilla bean creme brulee that was listed on the menu, we virtuously passed on dessert (well, it would have been virtuous except for the fact that she had apple pie at home, and I still had pumpkin brownies).

I managed to finish off two more squares for the baby blanket before Richard got home, and was apparently so engrossed in my knitting that I failed to realize some cat had run off with a ball of yarn and had had a merry time with it all over the living room. I discovered this only after Richard walked in the door and paused, staring at the floor, before laughing and following the trail of yarn as it wove from room to room. I suspect Azzie was the likely culprit, since he’s done this before, but he was curled up on Richard’s chair in the office, fast asleep.

Posted for NaBloPoMo.