Birdwatching, unicornknitting and new certificates!

I have been a busy bee those last few weeks. We spent new year's in Lübeck, a wonderful town in the North of Germany and also went to the Baltic Sea. A cold walk, but glorious. I had thought Lisek would be totally excited to see the sea, but he was more excited about his ball, which helped to keep us warm in -9 °. He had his new (or let's say our new) GoPro on his back, I hope I will manage to cut the material soon, then I will share it with you.

Last week I had the final exam of my mediation course. Mediation - for those who do not know it yet - is a method of conflict management, where both parties learn how to talk and listen to each other. The course was a very fascinating time and I gained so much from it, including more self esteem. Nonetheless, it was a busy time, including writing a paper and giving a presentation about it. Now I am missing my fellow students a bit, but I hope we will manage to meet once in a while.

Did I tell you that Lisek now knows how to give paw and also how to stand on two legs and look cute? He is adorable and I am so happy that he is learning so fast. In the beginning, when we first got him in summer, he was having a hard time to learn and I was already thinking we have a rather stupid dog, which would have been ok, but it's great that now, that he has lived with us for some months is as clever as he could be. I have big plans for us, like agility and mantrailing, but let's see how far he is until spring is here.

Unfortunately, Lisek makes a mess whenever he is eating. The floor underneath his bowls always looked horrible, which is what I wanted to change. I took some of the most colourful oilcloth I have and tried to cut a bonelike shape. That didn't work out at all. Now I have some oddly shaped pad that I put underneath his bowls and can clean more easily.

Jeannine, one of my oldest and best friends, is visiting from Newfoundland, where she moved some years ago. As it was her birthday recently, I wanted to knit her a cap (as it is cold in Newfoundland). She loves unicorns, so why not unicorns on a cap? Although I am the proud owner of tons of knitting patterns, it doesn't include any unicorns. All I found on the internet was looking rather boring or stupid. So what did I do? I found the picture of a uncorn I really liked, printed it in the size I needed it and then drew it's silhouette on graph paper. The tricky thing then was to decide which parts of the edges were still belonging to the unicorn, which to the outside colour.

The printed unicorn from the internet

Drawn on the graphic paper. I divided the lines and numbered them, in order to keep track of where I was in the pattern when knitting. 

Turning a drawing into a pattern.

As you can see there is always room for improvement. In the end I made the horn a bit thicker and attached some more stitches in the back of the unicorn. 

Jeannine with her Unicorn hat

Yesterday, the weather was really nice, so I took Jeannine and her friend Arly from Canada on a stroll through the forest. It brought back a lot of memories as ten years ago, Jeannie and me always took our horses through this forest. The whole forest seemed familiar, the sounds, the scents, all the birds... It was especially interesting, as Arly and Jeannine are birds experts and we stopped from time to time to listen to the birds and have a look at them. I usually never do that and it was nice to pay some attention to the little singing cuties. It was like a lesson in mindfulness, just standing and listeing. Lisek was not convinced though, he got bored and wanted to go on.

Tired from all the ball-fetching. 

Those eyes...

And, as you can never enjoy too many puppy-pictures, I collected some of my favourite Lisek-photos for you. No need to mention that we have hundreds of pictures of him...

On one of our many walks

Off we go...