This is the scarf I'm knitting. When I'm finished, I'll fold it in half lengthwise and make a seam, so it will actually end up half as wide as it looks in the picture, and be a double thickness. And probably with fringe on the ends, although I haven't totally decided about that yet.

It's going pretty well. I'm really enjoying knitting again. I bought a book of kids' hats and mittens and socks yesterday. I can't seem to keep my motivation going long enough to knit a sweater for myself or Bob (I've tried), although I think I can manage to make the scarf, since it's just straight knitting.

But kids' knits are something else--I can usually sustain my interest long enough to make a hat or other small piece, so I figured that would be a good thing to try. I used to make doll clothes, but those lend themselves (at least to me) to crocheting rather than knitting. Anyway, they're all good ways to keep my hands busy.

I picked up a copy of Knitter's magazine today, and there's a really cute idea in it--a miniature Aran sweater to wear as a hat! Sort of hard to explain, but flat it looks just like a little sweater (a way of practicing Aran cabling), but on a head it looks either like a jester's cap (with the sleeves loose) or something like a regular cap (with the sleeves tied). Very cute. I may have to make one.

I was cleaning up some of the Christmas things that were still in the living room, folding up gift boxes and storing them away for next year, and while I was doing that, apparently one of them ended up in the sink, and while I didn't notice it, the cats were extremely worried about it. Yes, it's a box. I know it doesn't belong in the sink. I'll get it out, okay?

Dinah's lying on top of the dryer right now, behind a stack of towels. She loves to hide. She's always getting under a rug, or a blanket, or the afghan on the sofa, slinking behind things. She's developed a new habit of pulling my towel off the towel rack in the bathroom in the middle of the night, and making herself a nest, where she sleeps the rest of the night.

I don't know whether I should encourage it by actually giving her something in there to lie on or not--of course, once I do that, she'll forget all about it.

S. L. Viehl's new Star Doc novel, Endurance, hit the bookstores this weekend. I saw it at Borders yesterday, although it wasn't officially supposed to be released until Tuesday. I had to use extreme willpower not to buy it, because I know Sheila Viehl is sending me a copy.

You can read an excerpt from Endurance at the site. If you have any interest in science fiction at all--and maybe even if you don't--I think you'd enjoy it. The whole Star Doc series is very compelling, I think. It's the story of a young female surgeon who finds out something so terrible about her family that she is compelled to leave the planet. She has some incredible adventures and makes some pretty amazing friends among the aliens she encounters. It's quite a story.

The first Star Doc novel has been nominated for a Barnes & Noble/B. Dalton Maiden Voyage award for best debut science fiction/fantasy novel of 2000.