Home from the Hospital, or Random Beauty from Thailand

Another post full of pictures from Thailand. (The first one with the elephants? I had to delete it to get this one to the top of my blog. If you didn't see it, Thai baby elephants are extremely cute.)

The update from here is that I'm home from the hospital! Yeah for my own bed and my own food. Boo for when the dog wants to come in from the backyard just as I've finally gotten comfortable on the couch.
What I'm needing most now is tons and tons of quiet. When I'm not fully up to snuff, I go into hibernation mode: plenty of laying on the couch, no television except for terribly bad reality t.v. great old children's novels, tea, and a cat or dog lying beside me. For the first time ever, this cat prefers me to my husband. While I was away, she slept in the girls' rooms. As soon as I came home yesterday afternoon, she jumped up on the bed, reclined on the comforter, and kept me company. He's a bit jealous, and I'm a bit puffed up about it. Knitting-wise, I'm onto the sleeves of the Bianca's Jacket. The back is a smaller gauge than the fronts; size 6 needles produce a better fabric but size 7 needles were much more comfortable to work with. Next project, I'm coming up with a way to swatch sufficiently to work the bugs out, while, at the same time, actually making Something. Tiny shawls anyone?

Now, for the random beauty. The Reclining Buddha, from my husband's trip to Thailand. Lying on his side here, you can get a sense of perspective by noticing how small the man in the foreground is in relation to the figure of the Buddha. And the ornamentation on the pillars, the gold leaf, the umber's and russet tones.

A detail of the face. And the ceiling. Even looking up is beautiful.
The hair. The elegant long fingers. The angle and shape of the arm and elbow.
The feet. This picture gives new meaning to my yoga teachers' instructions to spread and lengthen our toes. One hundred and eight symbols for the Buddha inscribed on the soles of the feet.
Color.