Stringy thingy ding-a-lingy

So maybe 2015 will be the year of the silly post titles.  I made some progress on the needle-felted string of lights (pictured here on dear-ol'-dad's fig tree with its winter haircut), but now I've put it away until later in the year when I may, or may not, add six more lights.

I have an experiment underway to make paper mache pulp out of cardboard egg cartons.  I put little torn bits of the cartons in my grandmother's old mashed-potato-pot-that-I-can't-part-with and I poured some boiling water over them. 

They've been sitting now for several days and I need to do something with them soon before they get moldy.  Which means that I will have to come up with a paper mache project idea.  As of right now I don't have one.

I've also been knitting on the cowl that I referred to earlier, using Noro yarn I was gifted.  I should hurry up and finish it and send it off to Big City Girl who is freezing her butt off back in the deep freeze that is New York City.  I'm sure her father and I made her feel much better when we sent her a picture of us sitting on the beach in 80 degree weather....

We've been very lucky this winter with warmer-than-usual weather here in southern California.  We did narrowly avoid another plumbing disaster last week, so all is not completely rosy....just so ya know.  Our condo complex is showing its age and needs to be propped up now and then...just like the residents.  I keep wondering who all these old people are who live here...