Finally I move on with my challenge! As I don't have a freezer (only a small freezing compartment in my fridge - which hopefully will be done on Monday), I took the balcony. Winter is coming, so it might be freezing cold there too!

The balcony is small. I use it for hanging up my clothes to get dry as I don't have a dryer. And it tends to collect junk parts from the rest of the flat. Theoretical I can sit down there - I have two chairs outside. But of course I rarely do. Here you see the reason:

I never drink alcohol, but had bought some beer for my birthdaypart in 2010 - still here. You can see I have even more plastic bags (I throw them away, it seems, that they don't like to much sun/cold). And you can see the remains of all the plants I killed - err I mean I had.

I started in the afternoon in daylight and finished in the dark, but I am pleased with it and I might even use my balcony for sitting down - once there are sunny days again. I keep some of the flowerstuff and will try again in spring to keep some flowers alive!

So only 3 things to go!

Day 16 - The Fridge Day 20 - Photos Day 21 - You pick!

Finally I made it to the bike shop and did a testdrive for my new bike. My old one is about 20 years old and in a very bad shape, so I really, really need a new one.

My old one was a simpler one (and it was a price I won. I am a blood donator and they are also have a kind of raffle for their donators. So it costed my half a litre of blood) and served me long, I deceiced I will go for a more expensive one. I never owned a car - so I saved lots and lots of money (no tax, no insurance, no petrol - let alone the purchase price) - and can spent easily some money on a bicycle!

And this will be the one: Contoura Porto metallic-green (bike) 8-Gang SHIMANO „Alfine“ Freilauf (gear change)

Contoura is a German bicyle company.

I ordered the bike today and will get it in 2-3 weeks.

Are you a Knitter? In that case you might be familar with the problem of a growing stash. It's so much faster to buy yarn than to knit it!

Are you a Raveler? In that case you might be familar with the problem of a growing queue. It's so tempting to add more and more of the gorgous patterns you can find there - and so many of them are even free!

And now there is (hopefully) a cure to both: The Stash Down A to Z group on Ravelry.

What is the idea behind it? Every month we are moving on to the next letter in the alphabet (right now we have A as we a just starting). And then we check our queue (and WIPs), if we have patterns starting with this letter. If so - voila: all we have to choose a yarn (preferable from our stash) and the pattern (if we have more than one - I fear for most of us this will be likely. I have 139 pattern in my queue) to knit that thing.

I have two things for Alfa November: My Avalontop, which is a WIP and the Acacia Scarf, which I had to start anyway as it will be a christmas present for my mum (lucky me, that it is an A too!).

Here is the progress of the Scarf (about 50%), but I just started on Friday!

My Avalontop is about halfway done too, but I didn't made any progress in November. I will pick it up as soon as I have finished the scarf.

It took me two days at work to reorganise the room. But I am very pleased with the results. I find space inside the cupboards for the content of 3 big boxes, which stand around in the room. It is a miracle how much more space you have, if you stack everything neatly in the shelves (my tetris experience come in very handy!) and not only throw everything in it!

So it might be forgiven, that I am not moving on with the challenge, besides having a very busy weekend. But it was fun.

On Friday I went to church from work and then on to my LYS for knitting night! It turned out to be a crocheting night for me. I want to crochet a scarf for my mum. Here you can see the beginning. The scarf will be stripped in the 3 colours you see. Not many rows to do - but very long ones. As I crochet the scarf lengthwise.

On Saturday I went to breakfast at my LYS, did some more crochet and visit a small Quilt exhibition, there a friend of mine was participating. Two Quilting Groups did show what they made and a couple of shops sold fabrics and other quilting stuff. I am interested in quilting, but never manage to try it myself. At least I bought some nice fabrics (all in blue), which hopefully will turn in a cusion. In the evening I went to the opera - I saw Tosca - and I even crochet at my scarf during the break. Yah for crocheting in public!

And now I am back from church and waiting for friends, who will come to my places for playing DSA. I already prepared some food for the evening. A wonderful recipe (I got from a priest from my parish) made of puff pastry, ham, apples & cheese. We just have to turn on the oven, thenever we got hungry.

...but right now I am very busy and really don't have the time (or the desire) to move on with the challenge. But I already bought a couple of books for my photos. At least I am preparing for the next step!

And I am reorganising the cupboards and shelves at work right now. Does that count too?