Happy Sunday, friends! I hope you all are well. I’m very excited, as (A) another August 31st has come and gone, and (B) I have the day off tomorrow! I have a Barnes and Noble trip planned for tomorrow that I’m excited about. I may even get dressed up in some ~~fall gear~~ The weather here has been incredible – high 70s/low 80s. We’ve been enjoying our sunny hikes, but I know that the relative warmth will not last for long (insert dark foreboding sentence about impending winter here).

It’s hard for me not to feel inspired by fall. I think aligning your goals with the school calendar year is hard to break out of, even as an adult, and it doesn’t help that I’m married to a college professor! 🙂 (Thankfully, Husband is teaching at home for this semester – phew). I have some fun goals planned for this fall and am trying to do whatever I can to salvage the remainder of this year, knowing it’ll be very, very different. I’m probably being a little overly ambitious in my plans (aren’t we all), but I have some fun creative projects planned, as well as some educational goals. And camping – I so want to make camping happen. I’m writing it here to hold myself accountable.

Since I mentioned camping, let’s start with some beautiful photos from our recent hikes! Husband and I have really been loving Fort Harrison State Park, and had a magical hike there last weekend.

Yesterday we explored a nature preserve. While hiking, we found a tiny graveyard. The stones were too weathered to make out names or dates, but based on my research, I believe that these marked the family who lived on the property until approximately the 1860s.

Finding old gravestones seems like a perfectly spooky fall activity, and I’m wondering if I can find trails that have more of them.

Apollo was very tired by the end of our hike!

Let’s see, what else. I have some new yarn acquisitions (stashquisitions? STASHQUISITIONS….anyone?)

This is from Explorer Knits and Fibers Italy Collection, Limoncello colorway. It’s a fun colorway. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but it’s a nice addition to my stash.

Lady Dye Yarn’s Summer Box came in as well, with some really pretty mini-skeins! I need to decide what to do with them, but I’m eyeing a couple of projects on Ravelry.

I think the next make on my list is TL Yarn Craft’s Party Punch Shawl. I have a skein that I’d gotten wound about two years ago now (whoops), so I’m eager to use it. I haven’t tried Tunisian Crochet before but it looks like a fun pattern, and hopefully a quick project.

I’m actually nearing the end of the Garden Party Shawl!

I played yarn chicken with this one and unfortunately lost. This is what happens when you skip the gauge swatch…whoops. But fortunately, I ran out of yarn when I had one more row to use that color with, so it’s not a huge deal. And since these skeins were dyed as a limited run, there’s no way to get another one (and it’d be a waste of money to use it for only one additional row, anyway).

I’m hoping I can finish this one today, block it, and take photos tomorrow for the next blog. Yay!

I hope you all have a restful Sunday and that you get to enjoy a day off tomorrow as well.