eclectic pursuits

Crazy Game

2012-02-05T11:14:00.003-05:00

In honor, or disdain actually, of the Superbowl, I've used the Indigo Girls' song title as my blog post. (Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm changing the naming conventions of my blog. A while ago I decided to use only song titles as blog titles, but I'm expanding it to book titles too.) In any case, if you don't know me, and weren't already well aware of this, I am not a fan of professional sports in general. If you want to hear me blather on about why our country has its priorities profoundly out of wack, that professional sports stars should make less than janitors and teachers ought to get paid a living wage, and that our focus on professional sports is a distraction of the masses by the leading elite just like the Roman emperors distracted the masses with the gladiators to avoid dealing with problems in that society before it fell, and that we're on the edge of the fall of western civilization, then let me know, but that's really not the purpose of this blog. Suffice it to say, that I am not a football fan and that all this hype over a stupid game annoys the crap out of me. But anyway, moving on, as I take a deep breath and get off my soapbox again, while making rude hand gestures at the NFL with both hands.

In writing news, basically, I haven't done any this month yet, because I have a word credit from January, and I was behind on my spinning goals. But the plan today is to write a mission statement for the cookbook, and grind out as many words as I can on the novel, before I post it to the Misplaced Modifier's group site for next week's meeting.

In fiber news, I didn't quite meet my January goals by the end of the month, because in my twisted little brain the singles have to be spun and plyed (if I intend the yarn to be plyed) before I will consider it complete. I was working on about 4 ounces of cormo roving I bought a hundred years ago (well, probably five or six years ago) but I didn't finish it up until February 4. But with what I had already spun up in January, met January's goal and gave me a 1.01 ounce credit for February. Next I have 17 ounces of romney fleece dyed in cochineal and logwood grey (varying tones of purple and grey) from the Copper Moth that I intend to flick card to keep the color variation and then spin. Of course, the flick carding process will be miserable, so I am again being a masochistic idiot. But I think that's what the fleece wants to be, so be it.

In knitting news, I finished one of the Absinthe socks, and I'm almost done with the other. I have about 80 rows left and I'll be finished. I may be able to do it today at guild. The yarn is Miss Babs Yummy in Iris and the details of the project you can find here on Ravelry.

I need to work on doing the up-sizing of the Flower Power dress set that I designed for Kate S, so that's next on the list, but in the meantime, I think I I'll be able to start knitting the short row shaped hourglass v-neck 3/4 sleeve sweater for me that I've begun designing. The hard part of writing that pattern will be including all the short row calculations for all sizes and busts. But I've set up an excel spreadsheet to run calculations so hopefully I can manage it.

In other news, this is the last day of my thirties. I don't seem to be having much of a reaction to it, other than the hair thing (see my whining in my last blog post). Also I want to give a shout out to Mary T for the Shaun the Sheep. I found a Timmy at Target, and asked on Facebook for people to look out for a Shaun and I'd pay for it. Mary T instead found one on Amazon and had it shipped to me as a surprise. Thanks Mary!!

This week I had dinner with a friend I grew up with, but had not seen in twenty years. Which, in and of itself, makes you feel crazy old. I think the last time we saw each other it was 1992, which was my sophomore year at Wellesley. How is it even possible that 1992 was twenty years ago? Of course this means that it logically follows that my twenty year college reunion is only two years from now. Sigh. And of course, the novel was supposed to be done by my 40th birthday, which it isn't. Sigh. But I had a great time and I'm really happy that my friend was willing to hang around Manchvegas for a bit before heading to Maine so we could get together.

I'm putting a gratuitous picture of Kiwi in because I was testing the new camera, which is, of course purple. But it's also 16 mega pixels with an 8x zoom and about 18 scene modes. Check it out here. Yes, I am a strict point and shoot kind of girl. There's only so many hobbies I can realistically pursue, and photography just isn't going to be one of them.

I also got a set of the new 16" circular interchangeable needle sets from Webs this week. They run from US size 4 to 10 in the set and come with two sets of end caps and keys, and a set of size markers, and two 16 inch cables in addition to the tips. I'm quite happy with them so far, as I haven't used them yet. However, I have used their regular size interchangeables and did like them very much. They are similar to Knitpicks needles being made by the same company, but the cables seem more pliable and I like them better. You can check them out here.

I think that's it for today's update. Stay tuned for the continuing story of a type A personality and the Quest to complete the 2012 Calendar of Doom.

On the Road Down

2012-01-23T20:19:00.000-05:00

Since I generally try to post at least twice a month and I said I'd be better about things this year, I thought I'd better get my rear end in gear.

Let me do the numbers run through first. First up, writing. Good news: I made my 8,000 word goal for January on the novel, and I have 1,259 words towards February. Bad news: It's still not done. I have 146,320 words and 481 double spaced manuscript format pages, but it is still not done. Good news: There's only about two to two and half days left of stuff that happens in the novel, and I got another sex scene in, as it is supposed to be a trashy novel.

Next, fiber. I have spun 1.11 ounces of fiber this month, and I've knit 392 yards of yarn thus far (I only count stuff I finished). I finished designing and knitting the hat and dress set for Kate S, and I made some matching booties for it too. I've written up a cruddy first draft of the pattern, which Mary S has generously decided to try to slog through. The general consensus is that I need to provide a range of sizes, but I think it's going to be a lot of math. (Duh. Understatement of the century.) So I'm putting it off for a bit, but I will get to it.

Camel

Cashmere or Vicuna before spinning

Cashmere or Vicuna after spinning

In spinning, I finished up spinning the ounce of camel I had. And by the way, I do think I'm allergic to it. Same reaction as I had two months ago, so I put on a dust mask and slogged through it. Will not be spinning with camel again anytime soon. I also had a fifth of an ounce of something which was wrapped in tissue paper. I didn't keep the any record of what it is, but it was so soft and luscious and there was so little of it, that I'm guessing it was either cashmere or vicuna. I don't know what I'll use it for, but it was fun to spin, and I'm slowly working my way through all my little random sample lots of stuff.

I'm still working away on the Absinthe sock which you can see here on Ravelry, but I haven't taken any pictures of it lately. I just finished turning the heel and will be starting the leg (it's a toe-up sock). I've been working on it awhile, but the pattern is intricate, and I'll been futzing around with deadline knitting a lot lately. I also began designing my plus size, hourglass figure, short row shaped front, close-fitting, three quarter sleeve sweater that began as a twinkle in my eye in Shannon Okey's Sweater Map Class at Stitches. Talk about freaking math, I spent 4 hours just in the initial writing up the first size for me thing. But I think I've figured out a way to do it, that I can generate all the numbers for everyone for short row shaping so I can actually publish a pattern and have it work for a lot o' people.

Also, quick product review. I got some blocking wire from Inspinknity on Etsy, the regular ones and the Deluxe Ultra Fine Lace set. Can I just say that even if you have other blocking wires (which I did), you need these wires? I got the Ultra Fine Lace Set first thinking that I already had regular blocking wires, so I just needed some lace ones. Once I got them and tried them out of the package, I immediately ordered the regular set. Run, as fast as your little fingers can type and get these. I was able to bend them in a curved u-shape to block the hat I made for Kate S's soon to born munchkin, and they popped immediately back to straight. When you take the wires that are curved in a circle out of the package, they immediately pop back to straight. These are so cool, and can be stored in what looks like a gallon size zip lock that it came in. I can't wait to have some really crazy lace to block.

Cashew Ranch Dip and Chips and Salsa

Mexican Layer Dip

Fried Fake "Cheez" Nuggets

Chicken Fingers, Hominy Salad and Ginger Bok Choi

In cookbook news, Mary Kate and I had the allergy dinner event. This was our first go at serving food that neither Mary Kate nor myself is allergic to. This was a good dry run to test some recipes. None of the dishes served contained milk, eggs, soy, wheat, gluten, or any of the other things that Mary Kate and I are allergic to. The cookbook we are planning will be free of dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts, which are the 8 most common allergens. We served a ranch dip made of cashew nuts, which was awesome, a hominy salad, chicken fingers, ginger and garlic bok choi, a chipotle butternut squash soup, my crazy hot Italian pea soup, a gluten free sponge cake with rum caramel sauce, date cashew truffles, and a cranberry apple crisp.

Hot Italian Sausage Pea Soup

Gluten free sponge cake rum caramel sauce

Cranberry Apple Crisp

Date Cashew Truffles

Now, we can't use the recipes using cashew for the cookbook, but we wanted to try them because neither of us are allergic to cashews and the recipes sounded good. I think everything was a success except the chicken fingers (which still need work) and the cake. By cake, I mean the cake itself, because the caramel sauce was killer. The cake, not so much. But it was also my first attempt at gluten free baking, so not the end of the world.

Since the dinner, I've been trying to research 1 hour a week as per the Purple Calendar of Doom, and try one new recipe. I'm still trying to test mayo recipes. So far, not good. I have one that came close-ish but the texture was really off.

In health news, I have five visits into the gym this month and only need three more by the end of the month. I haven't gone as much as I've scheduled myself, but we've had a lot going on, and the weather has also not been helping. But I shouldn't have a problem getting that time in by the end of the month.

In being almost 40 news, I only have two weeks left. On Friday, I'm dying my hair auburn red. Not because I have a ton of grey, but because the color is starting to fade out, and I can't tell you how much that is ticking me off. So I've been watching it get lighter and an ashier brown blond in places for about a year, and I've had enough of panicking that it will turn this awful washout out tobacco stained yellow color before it goes white. So, I'm all done, no more waiting to see what horrors the ticking clock of time has, they have freaking dye for that.

I think that's about it for this installment. Seriously, go buy those blocking wires. I'm not kidding. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the seller, nor have I been provided with any financial remuneration for making these statements).

The End of the Game, Part II

2011-12-31T18:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is where I'm supposed to catch you up on everything. I'll try, but I make no promises. Stitches East at the end of October was amazing again. I took The Sweater Map and Aspiring Designer Bootcamp with Shannon Okey and Stashology 201 with Christine Bylsma. I took the Aspiring Designer Bootcamp class to see if I wanted to make independent knitting pattern designing and possibly submitting to knitting magazines a priority in 2012. I found the class really interesting and I learned a lot about resources and services available for independents, but I'm not ready to put that level of dedication into my designing yet. But it was fascinating and it was worth every penny. I also found the Sweater Map class really interesting.

The Stashology Class was fairly simple, but I liked the idea of it. You took 10-12 different stash yarns, and used them to make about 14 inch strips which you selected at random to knit a swatch. It was interesting as to what you got. She also showed us a method to make your own fun fur. I might not use it for an actual project, because I'm not a big fun fur person. But it might make a nice algae or sea anemone for the knitted aquarium diorama I'm planning.

I'm not sure I'd make a sweater out of it, but I think it'd make some fabulous throw pillows out of my odds and ends. It was fun class after all the hard thinking classes I took.

Yarn I won, Malabrigo, woo hoo!

This year we also went to the student fashion show. There were some really fabulous things, and some that were not so fabulous. The dinner was not great allergy wise, I could only eat the appetizer, prosciutto wrapped melon and the piece of prime rib. But it was fascinating and I won a prize, and it was yarn.

Socks that Rock

Steampunkery Sock kit

Bashful Sparkle Lace

Madeline Tosh

It seemed like there were less vendors at the market this year, but given my stash reduction plan, that was probably better. I bought little yarn, which was good, but the stuff I got was good yarn, and I got a sock kit for the Steampunkery Socks in pale purple instead of white. I got some Madeline Tosh in a single ply which is luscious in person. The Socks that Rock I got to make another scarf. The colors are muted for me, but I can get away with them at work. The Bashful Sparkle Lace has a bit of bling in it that you can't really see, but I like it.
I also got a beaded purse kit with a really cool hardware for the handle.

At Webs I also purchased some of their new interchangeables. I got a set of their Cubix tips and the new nickle plated starter kit. I know they are produced by the same people as Knitpicks, but I just like the cables better for some reason. I think I'm going to get the tips to make 16" cables when I'm not broke. I didn't like knitting with the square Cubix tips, which is just as well because I stepped on one during the Halloween power outage and snapped it in half.

Since I was restrained in buying yarn, I picked up some books. I stopped by to see Allison Sarnoff and pick up the next Knit Princess comic book. She cracks me up. I also got the Knitwear Design Workshop book. Even just paging through it, it appears to be very complete and a great resource. If you want to design, this is a very good book to have.

I also got the Custom Fit Knit Jackets by Jean Frost. Heather took her lining class and I think I'll find it really useful. There's a couple of jackets in the book that I could actually wear to work.

I also got a new little tool that's to help you fix dropped stitches in garter more easily. It's cute. Probably not necessary but certainly faster than flipping the fabric a million times.

We went to Feng's again this year for dinner and it was fabulous. I had a really great time with Roberta and Heather, and I'm looking forward to next year too.

After I got back from Stitches, it was a crazy race to get a group blanket project done, which is part of the reason why I didn't post in November. The Concord Knitting Group and the Manchvegas knitters decided that we needed to do a group project for our friend Mary T who is having a bit a health battle right now. I had ordered the yarn, but it didn't show up until the night before I left for Stitches, so I couldn't get it divided and out to people. Upon my return, I divided it and got it out to everyone who was participating. Here's my square. We managed to get it together in record time, and I finished it the Saturday before I left for the cruise. You will note that I choose another overly complicated edging. Mary really appreciated the blanket and I want to thank everyone again, even though I've emailed you all :)

Thanks to the Halloween power outage (4 freaking days...lost 90% of my fridge and chest freezer again...why can't we trim the freaking trees around power lines??), and having to replace some of contents of my fridge and freezer, I wasn't able to spend the money to go to the Manchvegas Retreat, especially with the cruise in December. I'm still ticked off about that, and it was almost two months ago.

In mid November, a long awaited event occurred. I got to go a book signing of my friend Sally Hirsh-Dickinson's book, Dirty Whites and Dark Secrets. Sally has been working on this book in some capacity, either as part of her thesis or getting it ready in this form for as long as I've known her. Which is really a long time now that I think about it, that I've known her, I mean. :) She gave a really fabulous talk, and the book is really interesting.

Mary Kate and I have been working on an allergy free cookbook. One of the things we've been working on is a dairy free fried mozzarella replacement. I still have dreams about fried mozzarella sticks almost two and half years after been dairy free. They're pretty good. And I learned to fry without a deep fryer, so that's cool.

For Thanksgiving in Maine this year, I had to bring my own food due to the whole allergy thing. One thing I made was vegan whoopie pies from My Sweet Vegan. They were much, much better than Cafe Indigo's but they still need work. I'm going to experiment with them a bit to see if I can get them a little closer to the real deal. My cousin Andrew and his wife Katie were in Maine this year, and I got to meet their son, Nolan. Nolan is really interested in my sister Debra in this picture.

In December we went on a cruise with my mom, and one of my BFF's, Laura V. We went to Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan and Grand Cayman. We had a great time. In Cozumel, we took a ferry to the mainland, I drove a jeep in a convoy of other jeeps to a cenote, and we went cave snorkeling and then to the beach. In Belize we did a tour of the city, and then went to the Altun Ha Mayan ruins. In Isla Roatan, we went to Gumbalimba Park, went clear kayaking, snorkeling, and got a tour of the park including holding a macaw and Shawn got to hold a monkey. In Grand Cayman, we did a Sea Trek walk/thing under the ocean. There are just too many pictures. I can't cope. So here are some public links to my facebook albums. The first is here and the second is here.

Christmas was at the LaRoches this year and they were very kind to us as always. I got a purple personal blender from Corey and Cole and we got a electric wine opener. I will be testing that later today. We also got a Le Creuset dutch oven which was very appreciated and unexpected. I just wanted a cheapo one from Walmart, but I love the Le Creuset. It'll last forever. I also got the neatest wine stopper. It has a rock on top of it, and it's just my kind of thing. I brought a lot of my own food again because of the allergy thing, and I made vegan sticky buns, from the Lusty Vegan's blog, which were awesome, and vegan pecan pralines from Sweet Utopia, which were also pretty good.

In knitting news, I finished the cowl I was making for Mary T and she seems happy with it. It's Jade Sapphire cashmere and silk and it's very, very soft.

On the cruise, I brought some Berroco Mini Mochi and did a little shawlette with that. If you see the green safety pin, it's a place where I dropped a stitch and didn't notice it until I was blocking it. I'll have to go back and fasten it down and duplicate stitch over it to hide it.

I'm now working on a secret baby project for Kate S, using some coned cotton softball from Webs from a hundred years ago. It's a little girl and she requested fuchsia so this should do it.

And I think that's it. I'll try to be more regular in blog posting in 2012. Stay tuned for further updates as they are broadcast.

The End of the Game

2011-12-31T11:13:00.001-05:00

Well, it's that time of year people. Time to look back on the various plans in effect for 2011, and implement the new ones for 2012. But just to back up, and get this out of the way first, sorry for the radio silence since October. It's been a crazy-busy couple of months. But I'll try to catch up today, in subsequent blog posts.

First things first, the 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan review. To refresh your memory, I'll list out the original plan provisions and put the results after each item:

1. No yarn purchases during 2011 with two exceptions (there have to be some exceptions or I'd go off my head):

The Webs May Tent Sale - However, all yarn purchased must be at least 60% off retail.

Stitches East - However, only yarn that is not available locally or cannot be easily purchased on the web may be purchased.

Okay, well, I did pretty well. Only two minor failings. First, the Webs Tent Sale in May did not have any yarn that was at least 60% off retail, so I kept it as close of a margin as I could. I did buy some yarn at N.H. Sheep and Wool, but only two skeins. At Stitches East, I followed the rules for the most part, which the notable exception of some Madeline Tosh from Webs. However, I would like to note how much not buying yarn that was for me. To purchase yarn at only three events over a whole year? That's a freaking victory for me. So, as far as I'm concerned, yeah, technical fail, but I'm cool with that. Progress is progress.

2. Books, patterns, and needles may be purchased, but with the purpose of using yarn already contained in the stash.

Okay, so this is a gimme. Yep, I complied with this. Kinda hard not to, when you're not allowed to use any yarn but stash yarn anyway.

3. All projects shall be knit with stash yarn with the exception of any group baby blanket projects (said hoping that no one in my knitting group reproduces in the coming year).

Yep, I did complied with this too, except for some of the complicated justifications surrounding the Kyoto jacket and trades that occurred, but we decided those didn't count, remember?

4. Projects shall be chosen with the aim of reducing overall space amounts (i.e. 600 yards of worsted takes up more space than 600 yards of fine laceweight).

Well, I didn't quite do so well at this. I did have quite a few projects on small yarn this year. Oh well, something to work on for next year.

5. At least one project shall utilize my handspun yarn, which had already been spun as of 12/31/2010.

Done! Shawn's hat, here.

6. At least one project shall utilize a kit which had been purchased prior to 12/31/2010.

Done, the Vintage Sock kit, here. This would be one of the projects that was on small yarn, and also took boatloads of time, which may have contributed to other goals not being reached, not that I'm trying to make excuses or anything.

7. At least two projects shall be self-designed and the pattern shall be suitable for posting to Ravelry for sale. At least one of these projects shall be a design for a women's sweater with a wide range of plus sizes.

Yeah, well, this is again an area that I didn't do so well. I designed three projects, Mary T's afghan square, my Evening bag for the cruise, and a hat for Kate S's kiddo that I've not posted up on Ravelry yet, but I didn't write any of them up for sale. If I were to be so insane as to write up the Evening bag pattern which is very complicated with linings, hardware, reverse i-cord cording, and the beaded strap, I'd have to knit a whole new one because I pretty much made it up as I went along and didn't keep directions. I also meant to do a plus size sweater before the end of the year and even started designing it at Stitches due to Shannon Okey's Sweater Map class, but Mary T's group afghan project came up and I ran out of time. Next year.

8. At least one project shall be for Shawn.

I cheated and combined provisions 5 and 8 with one project. Ha. Shawn's hat, here.

9. With respect to the roving, top, and fleece in the stash, at least 4 ounces of fiber shall be spun each month. (Although this adds to the yarn, yarn takes up less space than roving, top and fleece.)

I didn't make it. 4 ounces a month is 48 over the course of the year and I only managed 36.62. But you know what? That's 36.62 ounces I might not have spun without the plan in effect. And I've noticed a sizable difference in what's in my closet. So again, as far as I'm concerned, that's another freaking victory, even though it's a technical failure.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the progress that was made. The plan was implemented because I had 337 different kinds of yarn in Ravelry. Despite purchases at Webs, NH Sheep and Wool, and Stitches East, and the amount of spinning that I did (which also added yarns to Ravelry), the total yarns in Ravelry only went up to 347. That's pretty damn good. I also knit 3.82 miles this year. I'm happy enough that another version of this plan will be implemented. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I also had a 2011 Novel Completion Plan. This was the plan:

1. At least once a month, I will participate in a Challenge Writing Weekend, whether anyone participates with me or not, in which the goal is to write 5,000 words over the course of a weekend. (Linda D and I occasionally do these challenges.)

2. In addition to the Challenge Written Weekends, I will average a 1,000 a week during the non-Challenge Writing Weekend weeks during the each month.

3. This schedule shall continue until the novel is complete.

What this really boiled down to was that I had to write 8,000 words a month for the year or until the damn novel was finished. Well, that means I had to write a total of 96,000 words or finish. I'm not finished. While I didn't make 96,000 words because November and December were near total losses with everything going on, I managed to write 80,174 words this past year. I know that people think I'm a nut cake with the plans and the calendars and yada-yada, but you know what? I'm pretty damn sure that I wouldn't have written even close to what I did, if I didn't have some crazy goals written down. I think the crazy goal makes me work harder than I would have without it, and even if I don't make the crazy goal, I'm okay with that, because I got a hell of a lot further than I thought I would. So I think this one is a win too.

So this is the point that I want to get across in all this. I don't make a crazy goal, and then feel bad that I didn't get everything done. I'm not a perfectionist martyr. That is not the point of the crazy goal. The point of the crazy goal is that you know at the outset you are never going to get all of it done. But by trying for that crazy goal, you're going to get a whole lot more done than you ever thought, and isn't that the point? So even though I didn't make my crazy goals, so freaking what? Look what I did manage to do! Yay!!

And on that note, let's discuss the 2012 crazy goals and the 2012 Purple Calendar of Doom.

The 2012 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan Rules, which I have modified somewhat from last year's plan:

1. No yarn purchases during 2012 with two exceptions: (a) The Webs May Tent Sale - however, I may not spend more than $100.00 on yarn; and (b) Stitches East - however, I may only purchase yarn that is not available locally or cannot be easily purchased on the web.

2. Books, patterns, and needles may be purchased, but with the purpose of using yarn already contained in the stash.

3. All projects shall be knit with stash yarn with the exception of any group blanket projects (hoping that none are needed for any reason in the coming year).

4. Projects shall be chosen with the aim of reducing overall space amounts (i.e. 600 yards of worsted takes up more space than 600 yards of fine laceweight).

5. At least one project shall utilize my handspun yarn, which had already been spun as of 12/31/2011.

6. At least one project shall utilize a kit which had been purchased prior to 12/31/2011.

7. At least one project shall be my own design for a women's sweater with a wide range of plus sizes, and shall be suitable for posting to Ravelry for sale.

8. At least one project shall be my own design for a decorative item (either my fish tank diorama idea or my dragon head taxidermy idea).

9. With respect to the roving, top, and fleece in the stash, at least 4 ounces of fiber shall be spun each month. (Although this adds to the yarn, yarn takes up less space than roving, top and fleece.)

And now for the 2012 Writing Plan. I'm calling it a writing plan because I think I'll complete the novel this year, I'll need to plan revisions when I rewrite the novel, and I'm working on a new project with Mary Kate.

1. Write 8,000 words a month until the Yet Untitled Novel is done.

2. Find a title for the novel.

3. When the novel is complete, divide into chapters. Revise one chapter a week until the first major revision is complete. Aim to complete revisions in three months after novel is finished.

4. Once revisions are complete, recruit three new people to read it and critique.

5. Research and develop a submission plan.

6. On the cookbook project, spend at least one hour a week researching recipes for list, and cook one thing per week, posting research and results to Google Docs.

7. Work out a schedule with Mary Kate for testing recipes on unsuspecting individuals.

Ambitious, isn't it? Remember, it's supposed to be a crazy goal. :)

And now for that whole healthy thing. Well, in the past year, I've determined the whole (said hoping no more develop) list of food allergies that I have. I've cut these things out of my diet. I also joined a gym in August. I did pretty well for the first 4 months, meaning that I went enough times for my health insurance to pay for it, but December was a bust with the cruise and Christmas, and the million other things I had going on. So this year, the 2012 Health Plan is really simple.

1. Go to the gym 8 times a month or more so that I don't have to pay for it.

2. Be careful and don't eat anything I'm allergic to. Try to avoid any accidental exposures.

And that's it for the plans. I think that's quite enough, don't you?

I'll be posting further updates on all kinds of stuff that went on during the last months of the year, since I completely failed at updating the blog during November and December. Have a Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all have a crazy goal in the coming year that you mostly complete :)

Come Together

2011-10-16T18:50:00.000-04:00

Today was the Manchester New Hampshire Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk. Good news, I raise $390 dollars! Good news, our team raised about $3,400 or so! Bad or indifferent news, I only walked about three miles. But I did it in a little under an hour, and my back is not completely messed up. I'm having some minor aches on my sciatica side, which is why I decided to skip the five miles. However, I think if I'd tried to do it four months ago without the gym visits, I'm not sure I'd have made it three miles without my back being completely wrecked. So that's good news too I guess! But I still hate the gym.

So, onto our regularly scheduled news segments. So far, I have six visits into the gym this month even though I hate it and I missed five potential workout days due to a cold. I'm trying to get a lot of time in because I will be also missing four potential workout days since I'm going to Stitches East. And I'm not working out during Stitches. It will be all knitting all the time.

In knitting news, I have one more class to get ready for before I leave for Stitches East on Thursday night. I've been working on it this weekend and I should finish up tonight. I've also done the research necessary with my food allergies, so now I just have to get breakfast stuff, and emergency safe food if the student banquet doesn't have anything I can eat. I've been working on the Absinthe from Knitty.com and I've gained a little. I've just started the cable bits so you can't see anything yet.

I've also started a Bird's Nest Smoke Ring in Jade Sapphire Cashmere/Silk 2 ply. Seriously, this yarn is just luscious to work with. I want to roll in it. It's just crazy soft. It's a cable lace pattern which is interesting to work, so I've gained quite a bit in a short time. It's funnel shaped, but it's done using progressive needle changes so that there's no increasing or math. Cool.

In spinning news, I started spinning some camel fiber that I bought as a sample a hundred years ago. I appear to be allergic to it but it's only about an ounce. I'm spinning it at a ridiculous ratio of about 40:1 on my lendrum very, very fast flyer, so it's going to take a bit. I'm considering finding my dust masks so I can just finish it up and give it away.

In writing news, because of Stitches and the homework for Stitches, I've been hell bent on finishing the writing quota left over from September (660 words) and October's goal (8,000 words). On Friday night, I finished, with a 174 word credit towards November. My writing group will be happy to hear that I don't intend to touch the thing again for at least a week and half.

So that's the news. Stay tuned for further updates from the woman obsessed with her Purple Calendar of Doom.

Taking Care of Business

2011-10-08T07:29:00.000-04:00

I meant to blog the end of the month wrap up last weekend, but my mom was here, and it just didn't happen, and then this week was insane.

So, on to the end of the month wrap up. I didn't quite make my goal to completely catch up with September by the end of the month. My New Year's plan for writing was to write 8,000 words a month until the novel was finished. I sort off mostly blew off July and August, and then decided in September that I would try to write 21,043 words to catch up with July and August, and make September's goal. I managed to write 20,383 words which is 660 short of my crazy goal. Which honestly, I'm disappointed I didn't make it, but I probably have that to blame for my current massive head cold too. I've been pushing myself a wee bit hard. So for October I need to make up the 660 for September and write another 8,000 words, if I don't finish the book before that. (Please let me finish the thing!!!) As of this morning, I have 539 words towards October, for a new grand total of 128,766 words and 425 pages.

As I said in my last post, I did manage to make my spinning goal for the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan. I need to spin 3.38 oz of something in the stash for October to comply with the Purple Calendar of Doom. My goal for the year is to spin 4 oz per month, but I have a carry over from last month. It's really quite amazing how much this has reduced what I had in the closet.

In knitting news, I finished Shawn's hat out of handspun. It's an Ashland Bay Merino roving that I purchased a million years ago and spun a million years ago. I'm happy with how it came out, but it does need to be washed and blocked still. It's one of those hats that covers your neck and your face sticks out. It's for Shawn to use at work. I used a freebie pattern from Lion Brand I found on Ravelry.

Last Sunday at the Concord Knitting Meetup, I finally started the sock I had kitted (is that a word?) up with a pattern as emergency knitting for the Cape (where we went on vacation in July), because I didn't have anything else on the needles. I'm using Absinthe from Knitty.com as the Pattern and Miss Babs Yummy Superwash Sock in Iris for the pattern. It's a toe up, which I have done before, but this time I used Judy's Magic Cast On which is much easier that the figure 8 cast on, once I figured out how to do it from the pictures.

On Wednesday at the monthly evening meeting of the Concord Knitting Meetup, I finally started getting myself together for Stitches East. I'm taking a couple of classes and I need to get my homework together. For one of my classes, The Sweater Map, I have to knit a a 4" by 4" swatch. So that's done. (I know, you're all fainting in shock. I'm planning on knitting and designing a sweater for myself that is not purple). I'm also taking Aspiring Designer Bootcamp mostly to see if I want to make taking designing to the next level as part of my goals for 2012. For that class I have to get together printouts of my website (which I don't have) my blog, and any other online presence I have (Ravelry, I'm assuming) and at least one pattern I've published. Should be interesting. I'm also taking a class called Stashology 201 where I'm supposed to bring partial skeins of at least 10-12 different stash yarns for swatching and maybe sharing, and various needle sizes. I haven't put the stuff for the design class or the stash class together yet, but I'm hoping to do so this weekend. I also need to find time to research restaurants I can go to in Hartford that will accommodate my food allergies, at least for dairy and egg, and I can work around everything else. We're planning on going to the student banquet, as well and hopefully there will be food I can eat.

In going to the gym even though I hate it news, I went 14 times in September. This month will be harder, as I'll be away for Stitches, but I'm going to try to stay mostly on track. Although I've already blown off two planned visits this month, one due to my cold, and one due to needing to reorganize and clean the closet area after I bought plastic shelving at Lowe's last weekend. I also bought new lighting. Fibery people - did you know they have Ott light bulbs for regular lamps now at Lowe's? And that the regular Ott lights at Lowe's are really cheap compared to the Jo-Ann Fabrics? I needed a new bulb for my little folding table top Ott light. It was $35.00 at Jo-Ann's and $9.00 at Lowe's. That's crazy.

Because of my massive head cold, I'm missing the New Hampshire Wool Tour with my friend Katie K this weekend. I'd go anyway, but I don't want to spread my cold to Katie. I'm really annoyed. Also taking place in New Hampshire this weekend is SOAR, which I would love to hit the market today too. If you guys can go, you should.

Anyway, I was up because I went to bed an ungodly early hour because of the cold, but I might see if I can go back to sleep. I feel fuzzy again.

Stay tuned for further updates as I manage to do them :)

Every Day I Write the Book

2011-09-27T07:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence, but I'm in the midst of being my little type A self. I've been working on the Purple Calendar of Doom and really trying to deal with some of the goals I have in my various plans.

This month I managed to catch up on my spinning for July, August and September for my 4 oz a month quota under the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan. I finished spinning the cormo, alpaca and silk fiber from Foxfire Fiber & Designs. The yarn as a single is toward your left and the yarn after I plyed it is to your right. I also ended up with a .62 oz credit towards October, which is good because I have a lot of stuff going on in October.

In knitting news I finished my Google+ KAL Shawl. It's really more a shawlette, which is actually good because I think I can wear it to work. To the left, is the unblocked shawl. To the right is the shall after blocking. See why blocking lace is a good idea? :)

In furtherance of the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction plan, I have several goals that need to be met. Paragraph 5 requires me to knit something with handspun that had been spun prior to December 31, 2010. Paragraph 8 requires me to knit something for Shawn. As it's getting to be the end of the year, I decided to cheat and combine them. So I'm knitting a hat for Shawn from my handspun. Once this is done, I'll have to take a break from the plan to do my Stitches homework for the classes I'm taking, as that is fast approaching.

In writing news, I have been completely insane. My plan for the year has been to write 8,000 words a month until the novel was finished. Well, I mostly blew off July and August, so I had 13,043 words to write to catch up for July and August at the beginning of this month and another 8,000 for September, which adds up to 21,043 words. 21,043 words if I was going to try to make it all up and write September, if I didn't manage to finish the novel in that word count. So I started the month thinking that if I could just write the 13,043 to catch up, I would only be one month behind, and I could make that up over two months. Two days ago, I hit the 13,043. So I decided to keep going so that there would be less to make up over the next two months. As of last night, I hit 16,242 words for the month, which leaves me with 4,801 words left for the month to write. If I can write 1,600 words a night for the next three nights (I can't use Friday, as my mother will be in town), I can make up all of September. I can't quite believe that this might be possible.

In gym news, I'm still going. Last night was my 12th visit of the month. I still don't like it, but I'm still going.

That's all I have time for, as I'm squeezing this post in before work. Stay tuned for further updates :)

We Work the Black Seam

2011-09-12T22:47:00.000-04:00

Well, after whining in my last post about how much time I was wasting at the gym and not getting other things done, I revamped the Purple Calendar of Doom and tried to take it seriously. So since my last post, I do have numbers to report.

In fiber news, I made up my spinning goals for July and August, and now I'm working on the quota for September. First I spun up some dual color roving from Ingrid Byrd that I bought at a NH Sheep & Wool or NH Wool Tour a hundred years ago. I ended up with 4.94 ounces of yarn and it's about a worsted weight.

Then I spun some Ingeo which is corn silk. I had bought a sampler pack of plant fibers, again a hundred years ago and had never spun this. It's somewhat like silk but harder on your hands than silk. It ended up being about a DK or sport weight. The resulting yarn reminds me of linen more than silk. I didn't enjoy spinning it and I'm not sure I'll do it again. I ended up with 2.29 ounces.

This brought me up to date and half an ounce into September. I've started spinning a Cormo/Silk/Alpaca blend Roving from Foxfire Fiber & Designs. I love her stuff. I just adore it. If I could only buy fiber from one processor/vendor, it would be from here. I need to have finished spinning 3.51 ounces by the end of September to comply with the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan. I have about 4 ounces of the stuff, but I'm spinning this very finely, so it's taking time.

In knitting news, I finished Chart C and have started working on Chart D of the G+ knit along shawl. I'm hoping to put some more time on that as well.

In writing news, I've gained 4,587 words so far this month, which nearly catches me up my goals for July. Sigh. But that gets me to 112,431 words and 370 pages. The damn thing will not end. I know where it's going, I just have to get it down. And I don't want to think about the revisions. This past weekend was the monthly meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers except we skipped August because we were busy. It was a wonderful day at Mary Kate R's and I made a dairy and egg free gingerbread cake, which was good and cake-y, but not ginger-y enough.

In gardening news, my habaneros are starting to ripen and I've gotten two cucumbers. Next year I'm going to take a pass on the tomatoes and cukes, and just do peppers. They are doing well, as well as the herbs, and everything else is struggling.

I'm still going to the gym. Tonight was my 5th visit this month of the eight I have to attend to get my insurance to pay for it.

In other news, I'm doing the 2011 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on October 16th. Please consider donating, as I walk in memory of my aunt Liz (on the left for those of you who didn't know her), who died in 2004, in support of those of my friends who are still fighting and those who survived. My page is to donate is here.

And that's pretty much the news that's fit to print.

Busy Doing Nothing (yes that's still a song title)

2011-09-03T09:31:00.000-04:00

Seems like I've been at a dead run all month, with not a lot of progress to show for it. But maybe I have to reconsider what progress means. While I am not personally motivated by the almighty dollar, it always amuses me how much emphasis I put on measurable results. That means completing a thing, reaching a word count, checking off boxes on a to-do list, completing goals on the Purple Calendar of Doom, basically getting something I can measure and see with my two eyes. Intangibles are much harder for me. I generally get impatient with people who focus on the overall vision and philosophy and I always want them to cut to the chase and get to the bottom line (to use corporate speak) and figure out how we are going to actually do the damn thing. I also have a problem with time. Time means more to me than money. I don't like to waste my time, and I am constantly engaged in figuring out how to save time, how to gain time, how to cut the time it takes to do things, both at work and at home. Time is always what I wish I had more of. I mean money would be great too, but it's just money, I don't lust after it the way I always lust after more time. Money can't buy me time, unless I won the lottery and could stop working for a living.

So what's the point of this rambling? I'm trying to figure out how to make it okay to myself that I spent a boatload of time at the gym this month to the detriment of my other goals. This was my first month as a member of a gym (that I actually attended) since 1996. I went 15 times this month and spent between an hour and an hour and a half each time. Taking time for physical exercise is tough for me. I do not enjoy physical exercise. That whole endorphin thing? I've never experienced it in my life (and don't tell me I will as things progress, because I never did even when I was more in shape and exercising regularly). Quite frankly, I think other people are making it up and endorphins are akin to unicorns and leprechauns. And I hate to sweat. And the time it wastes doing something I do not enjoy kills me. And my busy little type A mind says to myself, "Yes, I know that you're here because you want to be healthier and you don't want to get diabetes and you need to strengthen your back because you're tired of your back going out and your sciatica, but seriously? You're going to be dead and in the ground no matter what and wouldn't you have rather spent the time doing something else?" Can you all see why my inner voice is not particularly helpful? And I'm making measurable progress with respect to increasing the amount of reps on the machines, and how much I can bike, walk on the treadmill, and do the elliptical, and it is becoming harder to reach my target heart rate doing what I was doing, but my inner voice is not impressed. "So what?" it says. "You're getting better at doing something you don't like doing and wasting all this time, when you have other things you need to do like finish your novel, and make your goals on your stash reduction plan." It's been helpful that I've been meeting up with Bridget M and Shawn to help get me there, but I still I need help guys, help me come up with things to tell my inner voice. Because the fact that I need to do this to take better care of myself, is not impressing my inner voice. Taking care of myself has never been high on my inner voice's list of priorities, I've always had more important things to get done. Intellectually, I know I need to do this. But I need help actually believing it. Particularly when I look at what else I didn't accomplish this month as a result.

So, moving on to the numbers and what I didn't accomplish this month. As stated above, not so much writing this month. I gained only about 1,337 words this month for a new grand total of 107,844 words and 355 pages. Yippy. Spinning goals, a big fat zero. Woo hoo! Did a little bit more knitting, but not a ton. I'm working on the G+ BBKAL shawl. Got a bit done during the hurricane, but I've been lax about even knitting it seems like.

In other news, I did finally get my tattoo done. It's my 40th birthday present to myself, which is not until February, but I wanted it done before the cruise in December and needed it done in time to heal well so I can do what I want to do on the cruise. This pic is taken right after it was finished so the skin is still red, but I can't take a new one until it has finished healing and peeling, because you don't want to see the peeling. But it's looking like it's healing well. If you can't tell the yarn underneath the dragon says "Yarned & Dangerous." I'm really, really happy with it. You saw the crappy picture I gave to the tattoo artist in my last post, and this is what she came up with. She's brilliant!! If there's other knitterly folk in NH that want a custom tattoo done, here's her portfolio at Tattoo Junkies in Portsmouth, NH. Her name is Stina Sardina Wulfe. She actually did research on how people hold their hands when they knit to get the dragon's fingers right. And for those considering it, I was surprised at how much it really, really hurt. Lora K was laughing at me biting my finger really, really hard the whole time, as she documented the process on film for me. So this is my last one until I turn 80. I think once every 40 years will cover it.

This month also saw the arrival of my friend Kat's little munchkin. Welcome to the world, little Mateus, or as you will always be known to me henceforth, Roscoe Buford Bobby-Joe, in recompense for your mother screwing around with me about your name before you were born. The amount of hair on that kid's head is amazing.

The garden is doing well, I finally harvested about 9 ripe cherry tomatoes and the garden lived through Hurricane Irene. We were very lucky here. Although we had a ton of rain, the power only flickered twice, and my balcony was sheltered enough that I didn't even have to take the topsy-turvy that the cherry tomatoes are in down from where it was hanging. This is, of course, because I went out and bought flashlights, batteries, and things I could cook in a Jetboil if necessary. Laurin's shin dig got cancelled, which was a bummer, but it's minor in the grand scheme of things. My thoughts go out to those that were not as lucky, and I hope that power is restored to those still waiting as soon as possible.

Today I plan to try to write, work on the schedule for September in the Purple Calendar of Doom, and knit. We might go to the gym, but any thoughts you all have to use against my inner voice would be helpful.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Garden Party

2011-08-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

I meant to do a blog update last week, but things were busy. First, the garden update. Last Sunday I harvested some lovely little peppers. The quarter is there for comparison. Also, I took a picture last Sunday of how tall my regular tomato plant is. (note the line, the circle is the little tomatoes.) However, since I never got around to doing a blog post last week/weekend. I took more garden pics today so as to be current and accurate, since I'm nothing if not slightly compulsive. (No snickering - I can hear you all). So this is the comparison pic on the tomatoes to the left. The red line is where the top of the tomato plant is. If the thing were standing up straight (it's leaning cross the window box) it would be ten feet tall. It's ridiculous. My cherry tomatoes began to turn red finally. I also began to get some heft on the regular tomatoes. I don't think I have enough of a growing season left though. If any of you out there in Internet land have good recipes for green tomatoes, please let me know. I'll probably have all of three.

The peppers are doing very well though. I have two jalapenos that are almost full grown and about six serranos. Also I think I should have about ten habaneros if they can grow before the season is over. I think that next year I may call it quits on the tomatoes and just work on peppers and herbs. I don't think I have enough sun for much else. The cukes are vining everywhere and are climbing the tomato plants, but I only have one cuke that is more than an inch long.

In writing news, I don't seem to be doing much. So far this month I've only gained 1,337 words for a new total of 107,844. I seem to be in a bit of slump, and I'm considering whether I should try to do some revision or go back and add to some of the characters' back stories, because: (a) it needs to be done and (b) maybe it will help crystallize an ending for me. And then I wonder if this idea is just a subconscious procrastination technique because it puts off me figuring out what's going to happen at the end of the book. Sigh.

In fiber news, I have two F.O.'s (finished objects for the non-knitterly) to announce. I finished the purse for the cruise. I wish you could see how sparkly it is in real life, it's very silver-y, and the strap is beaded, but I couldn't seem to capture it in real life. I also finished the Mad Color Shawl Along. My friend Heather is the creative force behind Mad Color yarns and her group on Ravelry just did a shawl along (not a knit along because we all used different patterns). It's blocked but not dry yet. I do not currently have anything on the needles. Weird huh? But I plan to start the Absinthe socks from Knitty.com using Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply in Iris, which is on the top left. Also, recently having joined Google+, the knitterly folk there have started a knit-along, which is going to start August 16. I've decided to use the Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere that Mary T gave me (bottom left). I think it'll be perfect. The yarn is so soft that I want to roll in it, and the knit along is another shawl, so hey, that'll work out well.

Last weekend I attended Alison M's and Jim S's engagement party. It was lovely. If you want to see all the pics, go here. However, as the cake topper has a fiber them, I think showing a picture here is appropriate. You'll note that bride is knitting with orange yarn. How could it be anything else? The food was catered by Fred and was fabulous as usual. Pretty much anything Fred makes is fabulous.

I also got to attend Lora K's 40th birthday party last weekend which was fun. Lora was surprised, which made it a good thing that I managed to stop myself from saying something dumb at Panera the night before. Just as some words were about to leave my mouth, I realized I wasn't sure if it was a surprise or not. So for once I was not a bull in a china shop. Please make a note of that, not sure if it will ever happen again.

In a friend's fiber news, it was the end of an era on Wednesday. Sally H-D finished the watermelon dress that she began for Trixie some time in 2007. So then we made her try it on. I'm not sure what that was about. But it was finished. And I've since heard that it still fits Trixie as a shirt rather than the intended dress, and that she likes it.

In other news, I've been working on my tattoo plans. I've actually had some email correspondence with a tattoo artist and I've been working on refining really what it is I want to do. I've taken a dragon and photoshopped him a bit to get rid of the things that I didn't want and then I've drawn in the basic idea. The arms are crappy and I'm hoping she can redraw it so that it's right, but this is the basic idea. The yarn comes off the ball and spells "Yarned and Dangerous." Not that you can really tell that from the state of the drawing at this moment.

And I think that's it for this episode. Stay tuned.

Murder by Numbers

2011-07-31T22:16:00.000-04:00

Okay, the title is appropriate because I have numbers to discuss, in addition to the Cape wrap up.

While we were at the Cape we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and nearly 8 years of being together, by going to the Brazilian Grill and eating 14-15 different kinds of meat. Brazilian barbeque's are Shawn's favorite type of restaurant.

While we were at the Cape we managed to ride approximately 23 miles on the bikes over the course of the week, which was the only time we've been able to ride this summer due to rain, heat, and our schedules.

While we were at the Cape, I finished knitting 3 feet of the cruise clutch strap which included knitting in approximately 130 beads. I also worked on the Mad Color Shawl Knit Along, and discovered that, upon finishing the main part of the shawl that it appears too small and I need add another 1/4 to 1/2 of the current total number of stitches. So far for 2011, I've knit 4,145 yards or 2.35 miles, only counting completed skeins and/or projects.

While we were at the Cape, I managed to write another 3,817 words for a new grand total of 106,507 words and 351 pages of the novel. I managed to write 9,205 words out of my goal of 15,585 for July which included 7,585 words to make up June, and 8,000 words for my normal July goal or finish the novel. Well, I made up June, but fell 6,380 words short for July and I didn't finish the f-ing book. I'll just keep plugging along and maybe the thing will be done soon.

Okay, done with the numbers, Cape wrap up time! I'm going to sprinkle some pictures in, but to see all of them go here. We left Manchester on Sunday at about 9:30 am and got to Bridget M's lovely little house in South Dennis, MA around 12:30 pm. We got situated and then decided to go to Stop & Shop for groceries for lunches and breakfasts so as to conserve some cash. We hung out in the hammock for a while, and then decided to investigate a place for dinner.

Due to the review on AllergyEats.com we decided to try Not Your Average Joe's in Hyannis, MA. Unfortunately, they did not live up to the hype whatsoever. When I asked the waiter if the bread had milk or eggs in it, he offered me a gluten free roll. I explained that gluten had nothing to do with milk or egg, and asked if the gluten free roll had either of those ingredients in it. He didn't know and said he'd check but never got back to me on it. Then I asked about the falafel crusted haddock, and he said he had to check with the chef. When he came back, he said it wouldn't work. I asked if the chef had any suggestions about what I could actually eat, and he got aggravated and said he would send a manager over. I replied that I thought that'd be a very good idea, in my sweetest bitchy voice. At that point, I think he got the idea that he was endangering his tip. Which he was. The manager came over and helped me basically order a plain haddock with nothing on it because they couldn't allegedly put anything on it that would be safe. So they agreed to switch out the side with grilled asparagus because I couldn't have mashed potatoes. So the fish came and it was completely overcooked and dried out and I'm pretty certain there was butter on it anyway, which I figured out about halfway through, and based on my reaction afterwards. And the idiots served it with tartar sauce, which I can't have because of the egg in the mayo, but at least it was in a separate container. But needless to say, I sure as hell won't be going there ever again.

On Monday we found the Cape Cod Rail Trail and biked almost seven miles. We didn't want to push it too much as it was our first ride of the season. We were kind of tired out and due to our experience the previous evening, we decided to do dinner in. Also, I had biked in my fake cheapo Keen shoes and my feet had been more tired than my legs. So we decided to go look for sneakers and go shopping for food. I bought a new pair of Asics gel sneakers. (I was planning to join a gym anyway when I got back so I needed some.) And then we managed to get some milk free hot dogs (Pearl's, really good) and shot dog buns and some condiments and relaxed at the house. And drum roll....I found some six packs of Goslings ginger beer, so I could make dark and stormy's with Gosling's Dark Seal Rum. I just about cried. I bought two six packs so I could bring one home with me.

On Tuesday, we went to visit the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory as they had a free tour, and it sounded like it would be cool. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures, so this is the only picture we have. (Well, technically, there is one of me in front of the sign, but it is god freaking awful, and I'm not showing it to anyone. Shawn really needs to learn to take a decent photo of me.) It was interesting but it was self guided and only lasted about 15 minutes. They gave out sample bags at the end of the tour, but they were flavors I didn't like or they had milk in them. Yes, some surprising flavors of potato chip have milk in them. Like freaking Salt & Vinegar. So Shawn got my chips. After that we went to the Cape Cod Mall to check it out, but we really didn't find anything interesting. We're not really mall people. Later that night, we went to see the last Harry Potter movie, which we really enjoyed. And then, we got some lobsters! Yay!!

On Wednesday, we went to the West Dennis Beach, after eating lunch at the house. It's a pretty neat beach in that you can park very close to the beach so you don't have to walk to hell and gone with your stuff. It had a lot of seaweed, but once you were out about 15 feet or so you were clear of it. I somehow forgot to bring a book or knitting or something, and Shawn didn't bring anything so we got bored pretty quickly. We did swim and sit in the sun for quite a while, but I'm not one to be idle. That night we tried to find some Chinese food using Yelp.com. Generally I find the reviews to be pretty accurate, but this wasn't the case for the Golden Fountain Restaurant in Hyannis. It was edible and fairly inexpensive, but I wouldn't go there again.

On Thursday, we headed back to the Cape Cod Rail Trail, and we were able to go bit farther this time. Having decent footwear really helped, so we were able to do ten miles. There were also some nice water features we got to ride by. For our anniversary we had made dinner reservations at the Brazilian Grill in Hyannis. In this case the Yelp.com reviews were accurate. If you've been to Gaucho's in Manchester, NH, this place blew it out of the water. There was a buffet/salad bar that was about three times the size of Gauchos, and it had 14 or 15 different kinds of meat circulating. There wasn't much on the buffet I could have because it all had milk, mayo or cheese, but I was able to put together a nice salad, and there seemed to be a lot of fabulous things to try if you are unafflicted with allergies. Also, one of the meat options was steak with cheese embedded in it, so I couldn't have that, but it was fine, there was way too much other food to eat as it was. We had a really lovely time, and the restaurant was in a really cool and groovy area with lots of neat little shops.

On Friday, we had decided to park at spot on the Cape Cod Rail Trail that was just before where we had left off the last time, so we could see more of the trail, without having to bike past all the stuff we'd already seen before. We had planned to try for 12 miles, but that didn't happen. We parked at the Headwaters Drive lot, and then did the next 3.3 miles almost all uphill, before we gave up and turned around. So we did a total of 6.6 miles, but it felt like twenty with the hills/grade. I'm proud to say that I never got off the bike and walked it, but I was feeling it a bit the next day. The rest of the day we just lazed around, as the ride had taken it out of us. We grabbed a roast chicken for dinner at the Stop & Shop and worked on finishing off the rest of the food we had bought for lunches, since it was our last full day there.

On Saturday we got ready to leave and cleaned up the house, and headed back to Manchester around 11:00 am. We got back around 2:00pm and Shawn headed out to go pick up Kiwi at the foster parents. (Bird Supply of Nashua, we always tell her she's going to the foster parent's when she's being boarded. Yes, we have a sick sense of humor. We also like to tell her she's adopted.)

My plants did fairly well. Mom didn't kill them. I actually have quite a few cherry tomatoes, and I have two regular tomatoes the size of a pea. My regular tomatoes plants are huge and if they were not lounging all over the window boxes, I think they'd be 8 feet tall if they stood straight. It's so weird. The habanero pepper has minuscule baby peppers and is still blooming, and the other pepper plant has some that are ripening. I have a couple of cukes too. All in all, not bad. The zucchini plant is completely dead though. I'm not really sure what the heck happened with that.

Today, I balanced the checkbook, paid some of the last bills, although I had already paid almost everything before we left. After I finished that, I headed over to Planet Fitness in Manchester to join as planned. My health insurance covers the cost as long as I go 8 times a month. If I don't, it's $35.00. The gym is open 24/7 which fits my life better, so I'm pretty sure I can manage it twice a week. At this point, I'm just looking to strengthen my back, as I'm tired of dealing with it.

When I got back from signing up, I had to wind some yarn for knitting, and then headed off to guild. Mary S brought me some lovely cucumbers from her garden, since she's overwhelmed and mine are minuscule. When I got home I made refrigerator pickles, bread and butter from Alton Brown's recipe and then I used his Kinda Sour recipe and added a ton of dill to see if I could get dill refrigerator pickles. It's an experiment, we'll see.

And that's about it. Stay tuned for further updates as I get around to it.

Add It Up

2011-07-25T16:39:00.001-04:00

This is sort of an interim post before I start posting about the Cape. Try to get everything done before we went was a bit crazy since I spent the day with Laura V in Boston the Saturday before the week we were leaving. I mean, I did need to shop because I desperately needed shorts. Too bad I couldn't find any I could stomach buying. Seriously, they all sucked. But I did find a suit, a suit jacket and some shirts, and some makeup that I shouldn't have bought at Sephora, but let's just pretend that didn't happen. We saw a hilarious Coach bag in purple sequins that I would have bought if it had been say, $37 dollars instead of $378. If anyone sees it on deep discount or as a knock off, let me know. It was just too funny and it's the right shade of purple. Laura V and I had a good lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Their treatment of allergies wasn't stellar (get a damn allergy list will you, instead of making me ask about fifteen individual things), but it was pretty decent. After we finished shopping, we headed back to Allston, and had Vietnamese at Le's (formerly Pho Pasteur). It was a great day.

On Monday there was much cleaning.

Tuesday I met up with Lisa E and we went to XO on Elm in Manchester. It was wonderful. While they didn't have an allergy list, the chef came out to meet me and discuss different dishes and he offered to make me something that wasn't even on the menu. I ended up just having him modify one of the dishes by swapping out sides, so I had braised lamb shank in New Castle Brown Ale sauce. YUM. I also had the Far East tini, which was a ginger liqueur with cranberry and orange juice. Lisa and I had a great time as always, which is why we can't go out to dinner and have it take less than 3 hours.

On Wednesday, there was much cleaning and paying of bills.

On Thursday I met some friends and knit for a while, and then came home, and there was much cleaning.

On Friday, there was grocery shopping for the cape and for the meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers taking place at my house, and even more cleaning. I did lose a hermit crab to the big aquarium in the sky on Friday (I think) so I ended up also having to clean their whole setup that evening as well. Out of the original six I bought sometime in February or March of 2008, I still have two left. That's pretty good for hermit crabs I think.

On Saturday, there was much more cleaning before the meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers, and for my mother coming down to stay while we're at the Cape. (I tend to clean pretty much only when people are coming over, so it can become a Herculean task to shovel out.) The meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers went well, but we were a little lackluster as we were all exhausted from the heat (and in my case, cleaning). After the meeting I had to finish the laundry, pack my knitting, pack my writing, and my clothes for the Cape.

Before I left on Sunday, I took pictures of the garden, just in case Mom kills everything. Haha, just kidding. I just want to compare the difference after a week when I get back. Yeah, that's what I meant. Totally.

So the topsy turvey with the peppers in it has one jalapeno, but it's blooming. The habenaro is finally starting to bloom and the long red peppers have lots of little green peppers but no red yet.

I have about eight little green cherry tomatoes, and I finally got some flowers on the big tomatoes that have grown taller than I am.

I also have one little baby cucumber. Not sure I'll get any more as there really don't seem to be enough bees about.

I worked on my Mad Color Knit Along Shawl thing this week too. Have not touched the purse strap mostly because I think I'm going to redesign it. It's not quite what I want.

I also decided that I needed an emergency project for the Cape in case I didn't have enough to do, so I'm doing the Absinthe sock from Knitty.com with some Iris Miss Babs sock yarn. As it's just in case, I haven't actually started it yet, but I did wind the yarn.

So that's it for last week, the next post will be about the Cape vacation.

Any Colour You Like

2011-07-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks since I last posted. I've been out and about quite a bit, but I've also gotten a lot done in the last two weeks. So, here we go to the numbers.

In writing news, I'm working on making up for June and trying to do July at the same time and/or finish the fricking book. In order to make up June and finish July, I need to write 15,585 words this month or finish. So far I've written 5,388 this month. It is my hope that while I'm on vacation at the end of the month that I can finish while Shawn's sleeping in in the mornings and when I wake up at 6:00 am like I always do. And...drum roll....I hit 100,000 words on July 9. So I met my goal, but the book's not done. As of this writing, I have 102,690 words and 338 pages in manuscript format. I'm also hosting the Misplaced Modifiers' meeting on Saturday before I leave for vacation, so I'm hopeful that the meeting gives me a jump start of motivation before vacation.

In fiber news....drum roll...the Kyoto jacket is done. It's still not blocked and I think it will look better once it is, but I'm not going to have time to do it until after vacation. I think it will look a lot better after it's blocked, but the thing is done. As those of you who have been reading this know, there were a lot of modifications and issues I had with the pattern. To see those, go here.

After finishing the Kyoto, I started a little cutesy purse for the formal night of the cruise we're going on in December. I'm using Berroco Lumina. I couldn't find a pattern I liked, so I'm making it up. I wish the pictures did the yarn justice because it is really, really shiny. I'm doing a beaded strap, and I intend to use a magnetic snap closure with a dummy button over it for show. The picture shows the purse folded how I intend to assemble it, but I haven't actually done so yet. I'm also considering using the remaining yarn to do a lining to give the purse a bit more body and strength.

I'm hoping to finish this up relatively quickly, but the strap is going to take some time. I need 35 inches of it, and the beading slows it down considerably.

I probably shot myself in the foot, but my friend Heather S (proprietor of Mad Color hand dyed yarns and fiber) is having a shawl knit along, and I decided to participate. It starts tomorrow. Instead of a traditional knit along where you all knit the same pattern, the only requirement is that we knit it with her yarn. So I've chosen the LazyKaty shawl, and I'm going to knit it with some of Heather's Sock Options Merino I had in my stash. We can start it no later than July 18, 2011, and it must be finished by 10 pm on August 28, 2011. Can we all just start laughing now? There is, of course, a prize involved. I think those that actually finish and post a picture in the Ravelry thread by the 28th get entered for a drawing. Because you know, I really need additional yarn.

In garden news, the herbs are going great guns, there's lots of flowers on the cukes, and I have five little baby cherry tomatoes. However, the zucchini plant is dying for some unknown reason and the regular tomato plant is taller than I am, but no flowers. And the dill snapped in half in a storm (it was four feet long in a window box, not really surprised) so I harvested them and I'm drying out the seeds and leaves. Also one of the basil plants snapped too, so I made my own home made pesto for dinner with it one night.

Last weekend, we had a purge of the office. We got rid of the sewing machine table I have not used once since we moved in (I always use the machine on the dining room table), my old circa 1994 desk, Shawn's desk and a printer stand. I really wanted a u-shaped work station, but since I wasn't willing to fork over the bucks to buy one, I constructed one out of tables from BJ's. Although it's not really attractive, I'm very happy with it. It does what I want it to do, and I'm getting more work done because I actually have space to work and spread out documents. I'm going to go with function over form every time, which is probably why our space is more utilitarian than House Beautiful. (Plus, how much writing and knitting time would I lose if I decorated and then had to clean regularly? I shudder in horror at the thought, seriously.)

One more week until vacation down at the Cape. We plan to check out the Cape Cod Rail Trail with the bikes and check out the beaches and generally relax. I'm looking forward to it.

Stay tuned.

Starting Over

2011-07-02T10:22:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we had a meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers, which was fun as it always is. I'm always amazed by the things we come up with even when we're goofing off. Everyone's haikus were wonderful. And although I bailed on the haiku thing, apparently writing my little bit of doggerel verse got me back on the wagon. So I revised the Purple Calendar of Doom, applied the extra words I had done in previous months, and figured out that I needed to write 15,164 or finish the novel to make up for May and June. So I wrote a lot last week. I managed to pound out 7,579 words from Sunday to Thursday evening. I was three words short of making up May (15,164 divided by 2 for May and June), but that's close enough. I declare May complete. The plan for July is to write 15,585 words or finish the novel to make up for June and complete July. I intend to write quite a bit over the holiday weekend, and when we go on vacation to the Cape at the end of the month (thanks Bridget M!!), I'll bring the laptop and write before Shawn gets up, because my body feels it necessary to wake me up every morning at 6:00 a.m. So here's the stats: June's word count brought me to a overall total of 97,302 words and 320 pages double spaced in manuscript format. Good news - I'm only 2,700 words away from reaching my goal of 100K. Bad news - There's no way I'm going to finish the novel before I hit 100K.

In fiber news, I had spun more than required for previous months (according to the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan, I have to spin 4 oz a month this year), and so have been using the overage to credit months ahead. June was covered as a result so I didn't spin last month with everything else going on. I have a credit of 1.26 oz for July, but that means that I'm going to have to get my rear end in gear and spin a few ounces for this month. I'm also considering taking my wheel to the Cape, but I'm not sure how much stuff I want to lug. I'll have to see how it goes. I'm also thinking that I want to take my wheel apart and clean it, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I have noticed a difference in the treadling, so I think some thing's up with it.

In knitting news, I'm reaching the end of the Kyoto jacket. I have about 6-8 inches left to knit, and then all that's left is putting it together. There's a possibility I may finish by the end of the weekend depending on my writing schedule. After I finish this jacket, I want to do some knitting for the cruise in December with some stuff in my stash.

In garden news, the pepper plants in the topsy turvey were growing up to the next balcony. Since the plants come out the sides, I took it down and I've set it on top of a table. I have a lot of little peppers, the zucchini plant has one flower, but the regular tomatoes still have not flowered, nor have the cukes. I don't think I'm going to get any tomatoes at this point. The one year I decide to have a garden and it rains for two months. Sigh. Oh well, some peppers will be nice.

We're keeping it fairly low key this weekend, other than me attempting to write a boat load of words. We have dinner plans with friends tonight, but that's pretty much it. Shawn does not have Monday off, so I plan to write a lot that day.

Stay tuned.

Man with the Hex

2011-06-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the budget passed in NH this week, according to the lyrics of the song I'm using for my blog title, "it's going to get bad, it's going to get worse." No further comment, as it's too depressing, but if it were possible I'd be moving off the planet again.

In writing news, none of us had written anything on our projects for the Misplaced Modifier meeting later today, so Mary S. suggested that we each write haikus for the meeting. Now, I like to read poetry, but writing it? Not so much. Haikus are hard. So I wrote a bit of light verse about my inability to deal with structure for the meeting.

Poems are a chore,
Odes a bore.
Haikus are hard,
From verse I am scarred.
Seriously, this blows,
Which is why I write prose.

So there you have it. I will likely not repeat the experience for some time.

I've been stuck on the novel in several key respects. First, I've been knitting too much because I had to finish Kat D's things for the munchkin (pictures to follow as the reveal has occurred) and because I've been avoiding the novel. Second, I've been way too fricking busy on the weekends, so there hasn't been a lot of time. Third, I've been avoiding the novel because of my issue with how to blow up a truck that would work in the novel. I've been back and forth trying to decide how to make it work based on our experiments and whether to research a new way to do it. This week Mary Kate forwarded the group an email, informing us that an episode of Covert Affairs, Season 2, episode 2, had used a method similar to mine to light a gas tank on fire, noting that ..."if USA can get away with artistic license here, maybe Denise can stretch the truth a bit, too." I've decided she's right, and will make one little change involving motor oil to increase the verisimilitude of the scene in the book. So now I have no excuses, and hopefully I can get my act together. I had hoped to finish the novel by the end of June, but we'll see how that goes. We do have a long weekend coming up, so maybe I can redeem myself a bit for slacking off for the last two months.

As referred to above, I can finally reveal the knitting I did for Kat D, although some of you have seen this on Facebook and/or Ravelry already. (If you click on the pictures you can get a better view of the cables). This is a Yankee Knitter pattern, I've had for years. I knit the adult version for myself years ago, but it's now in the repair pile and I'm not sure it would still fit. Knitting this reminded me how much I hate trinity/blackberry stitch (or whatever other name it goes by). If it had been a larger size, I'm not sure I'd have gotten through it as relatively sane as I am.

I also knit a toy T-Rex from a Paton's pattern book. I'm told it has been christened Roscoe Pinto, which is sort of an inside joke. Kat D wouldn't tell me what the name of the baby was, and gave everyone all sorts of fake names as subterfuge, so I told her I was just going to name the baby myself and call the kid the name I chose for the next 18 years. I christened him Roscoe Buford Bobby Joe. I do know the real name now, allegedly, but if she thinks I'm not calling that kid Roscoe, she's got another thing coming. :)

I've also been working on the Kyoto Jacket. I have one more pattern piece to finish before I can put the thing together. I got together with Donna D this week to obtain more yarn, but I may have obtained too much. I may have to give her back some leftovers. She did get some nice cashmere that I had bought at Lora K's auction benefit in trade for the Noro Silk Garden. I hope that the damned thing works, and my math is right in redesigning the stupid thing, as I'm sick to death of it.

In garden news, I have a lot of little peppers on one plant, and some herbs, but not much else is happening. No flowers have bloomed on the big tomato plant, and there are no tomatoes on the cherry tomato plant. I think the rain and storms have just wreaked havoc.

There are no flowers yet on the pepper plants in the topsy turvy and on the scotch bonnet in the window box, and none of the flower buds on the zucchini plant on the pot have bloomed either. Kind of a bummer really. But I think I'm going to make some mojitos with the spearmint tonight as that has been going great guns.

You know how you can put basil in the blender and freeze it in ice cubes for sauce and stuff later? Anybody know whether this would work with spearmint? I could dry it, but that wouldn't be good in mojitos this winter.

Last weekend was a bit busy. We went down to the Cape to see Carolyn and her family. It's a bit of a long trip for one day, but it wasn't too long a drive. Suffice it to say that I do not enjoy how my GPS on my phone displays rotaries. There was a bit of getting lost getting home, but oh well. I don't get to see Carolyn that often any more because she lives in the Baltimore area, so it was great to spend time with her. I met Carolyn during my first year at Wellesley, so that means we've been friends for nearly 21 years. How can all that time be gone? It just doesn't seem possible. We had a lovely cookout for lunch, featuring marinated chicken, with Carolyn's award winning Asparagus wrapped in bacon cooked on the grill as a appetizer, and salad made with lettuce and peas from Carolyn's garden in Baltimore. Carolyn's dad also treated us to lobsters, clams and swordfish for dinner, which was lovely. We hung out at the beach and watched Kristin get buried in seaweed by one of her brothers and then went to play mini golf and get ice cream (they had watermelon ice so I could have something, yay!).
It's also nice to have friends that even though you haven't seen them in years, it feels like no time has passed since you've seen them and it's just the same as it's always been. We didn't leave until about 8:30 that night, and we got a bit turned around on our way back, and we had to stop for groceries because I needed to get supplies for Kat D's shower the following Monday and for Father's Day at Brian and Joanne's the next day. So after getting the groceries it was about midnight before we got home.

I hit guild the following day, as I had missed the prior two weeks, and then I met Shawn at Brian and Joanne's for dinner. We had a lovely time, and got to see Shirley and Al as well.

This week has been fairly low key, other than work. I've been drowning my sorrows in fiber and netflix. I also had my second chiropractor appointment, which appears to be helping. The knot that I've had in my lower right back for six months that was the size of an apple, appears to have disappeared. I have noticed that I appear to be walking and standing differently because different muscles are getting fatigued when I walk and stand. Weird, huh? Third appointment is Monday, so we'll see how that goes.

I managed to find a brand of hamburger buns with no milk in them at Hannaford last night, so I bought some dairy free fake American "cheese" singles, and I think we're going to have hamburgers tonight, and I'm going finally use some of the spearmint for a mojito. Yay!

I think that's it for this report. Stay tuned.

Heavy Cloud No Rain

2011-06-13T22:14:00.000-04:00

Actually, there's been a hell of a lot of rain. I'm convinced it's because I had the audacity to put in the balcony garden. Without much sun, I'm not sure I'll get any tomatoes, unless things change soon. I do however, have one baby pepper which I've circled to the right. (If you click on the picture it will enlarge if you're viewing this on the blog). I also have a 3 foot high dill plant in window box. Kinda hard to see with the trees as a background so I put a nice red line so you could see. It looks fairly ridiculous.

I have a nice bit of spearmint and cilantro, and I'm wondering if the peppers in the topsy-turvy will do anything, but without some sun this is going to be a moot point. It looks like I have quite a few flowers that are going to bloom on the zucchini plant, but the cukes really haven't gone anywhere yet.

In knitting news, I finished both Secret Baby Projects for my friend Kat. Of course, I can't post them until the unveiling, but if you are on Ravelry, go check them out. I was fairly obsessive last weekend until I finished the last project. I pretty much didn't do much else, except Shawn and I met up with Chris and Kristie for dinner on Sunday. It was really good to see them, but we missed getting to see the kiddos. Anyway, back to knitting. I've gone back to the Kyoto Jacket. Which I might add, has been a huge source of frustration. Seriously, I can't believe how aggravated it makes me that I paid $8.00 for a pattern this badly written. I think on Thursday, I spent two to two and half hours redesigning the last row of entrelac on the sleeves because the last row on the pattern was so completely and utterly wrong, and the "normal" last row of entrelac from the reference books didn't match how the cast on at the end of the other sleeve looked. So I ended up knitting and reknitting it until I got a method that worked to mimic the other armhole better. I was having an apoplectic fit. Because of the fitting issues, I had to add the shawl collar first so I could get the correct fit, and now I'm knitting the two bottom pieces. Still trying to figure out what I'm going to need for additional yarn. I used the Knitting Math Wizard to calculate the remaining yardage needed, but it's still only an approximate guess since the pieces are a combination between a rectangle and uneven trapezoid. I'm probably going to get to the bitter end before I really know what else I need for yarn. (Donna D - thinking at this point 1 more skein, unless calcs are really wrong).

I recently updated my super crazy type A knitting yardage spreadsheet, and I've knit 7.26 miles of yarn since I started keeping track at the end of August of 2009. I've only knit 1.73 miles this year. I think the Vintage Socks really slowed me down.

I signed up for my classes for Stitches East. I'm taking Aspiring Designer Bootcamp, The Sweater Map and Stashology 201. I think they will be interesting, and they will keep me busy so hopefully I won't shop as much. (Hey, you can all stop laughing and falling off your chairs now, thank you very much.) I'm really looking forward to the trip, and I'm going to go down after work on Thursday this year.

Writing news...yeah, well, um....not so much. I need somebody to give me a good kick in the ass, so somebody do that, will you?

Mom came down this past weekend, but honestly it rained so much and the arthritis in my spine and ankle went nuts and the rain didn't do so much for Mom either. So we pretty much just hung out and watched netflix. We were going to go to the American Stonehenge in Salem, but I wasn't walking around a mile on a trail in the rain.

Anyway, stay tuned for breaking news as it occurs or as I get around to posting it, in a semi-timely manner.

Wreck of the Day

2011-05-30T17:20:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is one of the last three things I had to do on my crazy list of things to accomplish today. If you haven't been following along on facebook I did eight loads of laundry, made a country white bread with some oat flour and a honey wheat germ wheat bread, put all my receipts from May 5 forward into my checkbook, balanced it and paid bills, made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and experimented with hotter buffalo wings for lunch. After this post is complete, all I will have left is making dinner, which will be bourbon marinated steak tips from McKinnons, and whatever else I figure out for sides, and working on Secret Baby Project #2 for Kat.

It's been a crazy busy week and month. This week I was out a lot. Thursday I hung out at Alison's and that evening I finished Secret Baby Project #1 for Kat around midnight. I do get obsessive at the end of a project and it had to be finished that evening. For those of you on Ravelry you can check it out. I can't unveil it here until I give it to Kat. On Friday night I met my friend Lisa E at Golden Bowl for dinner and then after talking there for two hours, we headed over to Strange Brew for a beer. They have a good beer menu for NH, but it's still not that extensive (given that I used to live about 3-4 blocks from the Sunset Grill in Allston). The band was so freaking loud that I had to yell across the table so that Lisa could hear me, so the next day I felt like I'd screamed for a couple of hours. I didn't get home until about 11:30 or so, and when I got home I still had to pack up some things to visit Nan the next day.

Years and years ago, Nan lent me a 4 harness loom. The thing is, I haven't touched it since we moved into this apartment. Which was somewhere around 5-6 years ago, I think. So on Saturday, I brought it back up to her so she could pass it onto those who would get more use out of it, since she's been giving some looms and supplies to one of her causes. I wish I could have been a weaver, but it's not my thing, I guess. I look at the things Katie K does and salivate, but it's apparently not something I can make myself do. The thought really aggravates me, but I suppose there's only so much I can do. I hadn't seen Nan in about a year and a half or so, and it was really good to see her. She gave us some really lovely asparagus from her patch too. But after three hours of laughing at her house, added onto the effects of talking to Lisa at Strange Brew the night before, my throat was killing me. So Saturday night I took about a 4 hour nap, woke up at 10 pm, ate dinner and knit until 2:00 am, and went back to bed.

On Sunday, I worked on Secret Baby Project #2 for Kat (it's on Ravelry for the knitters but again I can't reveal anything here until I give it to Kat), in the morning before guild and at guild. After I got home from guild, Shawn and I went to McKinnons in Salem to stock up on some meat products and grab something to cook for dinner. I found some Boar's Head hot dogs that were dairy and gluten free, as well as some Arnold's hot dog buns that had no milk or egg in them. I just about cried really. So we came home and I fried hot dogs in my cast iron fry pan to get that grilled effect, and caramelized some onions. They were so good.

The garden has been coming along. I have flowers on the cherry tomatoes and one of the pepper plants in the window boxes. I'm very curious to see if I'm going to get any thing or not.

In writing news, there hasn't been any this month. I've completely blown my goal for the month. There's just been too much going on, and I've not been focused on it. So I need to get my act together. How crazy would it be to try to make it up in June? I'll have to ponder that.

Well, that's it for this week. Stay tuned for further updates.

Some Other Spring - Part IV

2011-05-23T12:08:00.000-04:00

Okay, almost up to date! Woo Hoo! As some of you know, I'm writing a novel. It is not high literature, it is supposed to be just a "fun read," i.e. trashy, and/or mind jello. I have no delusions of literary greatness. In any case, I most recently needed to figure out now to blow up a truck on a five to ten minute time delay only using what was available, after my idiot character blew someone away without planning ahead as to how to get rid of the body. So I had talked to my mom (apparently, you don't want to cross my mom), and she had suggested using baling twine (novel is set in rural Maine) as a long wick into the gas tank of the truck. So that's how I wrote it. But I began wondering if that would really work. So I mentioned to my assistant at work that I might want to run down to an Agway at lunch to see if I could talk someone into giving me a foot of baling twine. She thought her husband might have some, so on Friday she brought me in four different kinds of rope and twine.

Coincidentally on Saturday we had a meeting of my writing group, the Misplaced Modifiers, at Mary S's house. So I packed up the samples, a metal bowl to put water in, some metal tongs, and one of my Jetboil PCS's, and at the meeting Mary gave us the go ahead to burn stuff in her driveway.

This is me lighting up the Jetboil to use as our ignition source.

Mary Kate is getting ready to document our first rope being burned.

First rope, cotton clothes line apparently.

Burns in the flame of the jetboil.

But smoldered out quickly.

Next we did some twine that wasn't baling twine, but looked like a similar material. (Did some research on the Internet. Did you know there are Internet forums on haying? Me neither. Anyway, found out that traditional baling twine is made of sisal). It burned in the flame, and burned for a little after, but went out quickly.

Then we tried the rope, which looked like it was made of plant fiber, so I split the plies down, until we got it to the size of baling twine.

It didn't burn so well either.

We also had a bit of plastic rope, which none of us thought would work, but we burned it anyway, and we were right. It melted nicely though.

So then we decided to get serious and luckily, Mary S had some gasoline around. So we took some more of the rope, split it down again, and dipped it in the gasoline.

I decided to be somewhat safety conscious and used the metal tongs to hold it over the Jetboil.

It burned much better, but still went out fairly quickly after it had run through the part where we dipped it in gas.

So anyway, the consensus was that it probably wouldn't have worked for the amount of twine that I had laid out. So now I have to investigate other ways to blow up a truck on a time delay.

On Sunday, we went to have dinner with Mary Kate and Daniel (pizza, with fake cheese for me and Mary Kate and real pizza for Shawn and Daniel). The reason that we went is that I had run into Mary Kate and Daniel at NH Sheep & Wool, and was told that Daniel was thinking about spinning. I, as a fiber enabler, of course, offered to teach Daniel to spin if he wished. So apparently it planted a seed, and Mary Kate called me to set up a time to do it.

I have today off because I've been burning the candle at both ends, and I haven't taken a vacation day since December. So I was going to do all kinds of things today, but I think the blog catch up is enough. Kiwi has been so bored by all this blogging that she's figured out how to walk around on the bottom of her cage.

So that's it for now. Hopefully, I'll get back in a regular schedule.

Some Other Spring, Part III

2011-05-23T11:04:00.000-04:00

Okay, here we go again. Sunday the 15th, I headed to the NH Sheep & Wool Festival in Hopkinton to meet up with Katie K and wander around and have lunch after as we always do. It was a bit rainy and wet, but not as bad as I've seen it in previous years. Unfortunately, I was having such a good time talking to Katie, that I forgot to take any pictures for the blog. Oh well. And I have to confess...under the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan, I was not supposed to buy any yarn at this event. However, I stopped by the lovely Heather S's booth, Mad Color Fiber Arts, and with her evil and malicious incredible dyeing skills, had two lovely skeins in a purple blue and green colorway called Belladonna, which I had to buy. It's totally all her fault. How could she not know that I would be forced to buy that? Anyway, for those of you who are not trying to reduce your fiber purchasing, check out her stuff, it's gorgeous.

On Tuesday of last week, I had dinner with the Jetboil and ex-Jetboil crew. We had a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. I got to meet Kristin's new addition finally. Please excuse the cruddy blackberry picture again. He was as good as gold and he was studying everyone carefully. He was adorable.

On Friday, Lora K and I went down to the Derry knitting group at Yarn & Fiber to celebrate Gina H's and Caroline C's birthdays. I meant to bring my real camera, but I forgot, so again, blackberry photography, sorry.

Jackie got the cake with the tree and the ladybugs from Hannaford, it was really pretty.

As I have a lot of pictures to document the last two days of my weekend, so ends part III. Stay tuned for part IV.

Some Other Spring, Part II

2011-05-23T10:39:00.000-04:00

To continue, we attended Shawn's uncle Jeff's 50th birthday party on Mother's Day weekend. Shawn's parents were out of town, and my mother really isn't invested in Hallmark holidays. It was a fun time, but it was a little disturbing for me to realize that I'm only about ten years younger than he is, since I'll be forty in February. I apologize for the really crappy picture. I forgot my camera, and my blackberry takes really yucky photos.

To digress a bit, some of you know that I'm thinking about a knitting tattoo for my 40th birthday. I'm thinking about getting a dragon that's knitting surround with balls of yarn with a caption that says "Yarned & Dangerous" underneath. The picture is close, but I want the dragon to be sitting up and knitting and I want the swirls to be balls of yarn. I need to get in touch with a couple of places to see who could draw that for me, but I've been a might busy. Maybe today, since I'm off I can send out emails.

The weekend of May 14 and 15 was full of fibery goodness. Stephie S and I braved the crowds and the madness and went to the annual WEBS tent sale on Saturday. It was crazily insane (I usually go on Sunday when it's not quite so nuts).

I did not quite follow the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan, as I was somewhat over optimistic as to the level of savings I could achieve, but I did good and got some killer deals. I managed to get enough yarn to do three sweaters and three shawls or five sweaters and one shawl depending on what I do with the yarn, and I got some more of the sparkly stuff to design the sweater I'm planning. I didn't think the one skein I already had was going to do it. So anyway, here's pictures of the haul.

For one of the shawls I picked up Noro's laceweight, which I had not seen before. I really like it, and it seems much softer than normal Noro.

This is the sparkly stuff. It's Artyarns Beaded Pearl and Sequin and the base yarn is silk. It's gorgeous stuff. And I got it on discount, so that's good.

This is one of WEBS brand yarns. It's Valley Yarns Huntington and I think I'm going to do a lightweight short sleeve sweater for work. It's about a fingering weight I believe.

This is a merino tencel yarn, Valley Yarns 2/10 Colrain Lace, and what's funny about this, is that when I got home and went to log it into my inventory in Ravelry, I discovered that I bought two cones of it at the tent sale last year. I must really like it, but I did get a good deal on it too.

This 2/14 in Alpaca and Silk. It's really gorgeous, and I got a killer deal on it.

This is alpaca and silk boucle from Bristol Yarns Gallery and it's called Yardley. I'm hoping to do another short sleeved shell for work in it.

This is Nashua Creative Focus Cotton, and I'm hoping to do a light summer casual sweater in it.

Stephie and I went to a new Asian restaurant in Northampton, as the place we normally go had changed hands. So we went to a place called Zen which was across the street. It was really very good, and we enjoyed it after the whole insanity of the sale. I managed to make it home by about 5:00 pm ish.

So ends Part II, to prevent me from going insane from picture formatting. Stay tuned for Part III.

Some Other Spring

2011-05-23T09:55:00.000-04:00

Prepare for an onslaught. I haven't blogged in just about over a month, and a lot has been going on.

In my last blog post, I wasn't sure if I was going to make my writing goal for April. I did, and now have 89,723 words. However, I haven't written a word for May, as of this morning. This may change as I have today off, but we'll see. I also have had a lot of social and fiber events going on, and I have been infected by spring. So I put a garden on the balcony.

There is a cherry tomato plant in the topsy turvey for tomatoes, and jalapenos, serranos, and some other pepper I can't remember in the topsy turvey for peppers. I have a regular tomato plant, zucchini, and cucumbers in the big pots.

In the window boxes, I have cilantro, sage, dill, scotch bonnet peppers, some other pepper I can't remember, spearmint for mojitos, rosemary, greek oregano, and basil. So since the day I finished hauling all the soil and the plants up the stairs, and almost killed myself trying to get the tomato topsy turvey installed, it has rained every day. Hilarious.

I also finally managed to decorate my office and get my diplomas and crap up on the walls after nearly a year and a half of being at my job.

You might note that I very much enjoy Van Gogh. I would have liked to get a Georgia O'Keefe (who is another of my favorites) but the selection was limited on my budget shopping in the poster department of Michael's and AC Moore. The lighting made it pretty impossible to get decent pictures with the glare from the poster frames, so if you can't tell its the Irises, in the picture on the left.

I also decorated the hallway a bit. (If you click the pictures, they'll get bigger, but I got a poster of sea shells and got some matching seashells and put them in a square glass vase.

Also for the knitterly among you, who weren't around for the wedding knitting madness, the wreath in the picture with my wedding photos is the wreath I knit for the gazebo that we got married in front of at the York Harbor Inn.

I'm going to continue on in a further post, because trying to format all the pictures is making me nuts. So stay tuned for Part II.

Seven Days

2011-04-17T22:37:00.000-04:00

Actually, it's been more like two weeks since I blogged last. I've had a rough couple of weeks, and last weekend I skipped the blogging. I was attempting to recover through fiber therapy; therefore, I did nothing but knit and spin the whole weekend. I even blew off going to Concord for knitting last Sunday because I wasn't motivated enough to get out of my pajamas.

Suffice it to say, I haven't written my goals for this week or last. The week before last, I was out quite a bit, and I don't think I made it home before 8 pm any night before Friday. I did get to see my friend Vera K for dinner, as she was speaking at our alma mater, Wellesley College. I was last at Wellesley about three years ago, when I visited the career services department, to meet with the career counselor who specializes in assisting alums who wish to leave the legal profession (i.e. lawyer burnouts). During that visit I was astonished about how much had changed, and this time I was astonished about how much had change since the last visit. It was great to see Vera again. I'll spare you with the blow by blow for that week, but I also finally made it down to Derry for the Friday night knitting group at Yarn and Fiber. It was really good to see everyone. I'm going to have to make a serious effort to show up more often.

Last weekend, I started spinning some fiber I bought from Ingrid Byrd either at NH Sheep & Wool or at the Wool Tour, many long years ago. I'm not sure why I bought it as I'm not really into browns, but I do like it, even though earth tones are not my thing at all. Maybe I'll make something with it and give it away.

Still plugging away at the Kyoto jacket. Jury's still out. And I'm using up more yarn than I thought, but we'll see.

Last Sunday, I decided to take my absence from guild as an opportunity to dye up the Optim and the 4 oz of Cormo & Silk Roving (75%/25%) from Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm that I had spun up. I'm not thrilled with the color of the Optim, it was supposed to be jade, and I think it's closer to a kelly green. I may attempt overdying it. The Cormo & Silk roving dyed a darker shade of plum than I intended, but I like it. I love the way the silk picks up the color differently.

This weekend my mother came down from Maine for the weekend. She's back there for the summer, and she'll be going back to AZ in the fall. We ended up at Taipei Tokyo twice, once on Friday night and once for lunch today. We do weird things when she comes down. Friday night, we hit Ocean State Job lots and bought a bunch of random crap. Saturday we went to the Used Book Superstore and bought way too many books. I was seduced by several ridiculous titles, I hope the books live up to them. Then we went to MacKinnons in Salem, and saw the biggest lobster I have ever seen for sale. It was crazy. So of course, I had to take pictures with my blackberry. Notice how its claw is as big as a regular size lobster. We didn't buy it, but we really wanted to. It was crazy.

Today, we did a little field trip to Lowe's across the street. Kiwi had pretty much destroyed the tray of her table top perch, and the laminate was coming apart, because the Princess of Destruction likes to shake her water and slop it over the sides to aggravate us. After repeated dunkings the laminate particle board had begun to deteriorate and she'd begun to start ripping it apart. So I bought a board about the same width and twice the length as they didn't have square pieces, some 2x2's, wood screws and a handsaw to cut the board in half, and I built a new tray bottom today with my Dremel. You will note that although she was very suspicious of the new bottom at first, it took her no time at all to start gnawing on the 2x2's. So I'm sure I'll have to replace it again, but it was a heck of lot cheaper than buying her a new playgym.

I also bought a some brackets to hang the window boxes on the railings so I installed those today too. And I picked up a topsy turvy thing for pepper plants. I intend to do some container gardening this year, even though I've been saying that for a few years. I'm going to make it easy on myself and buy plants this year though.

We also managed to book the flights for our cruise in December and book the hotel in Miami for the night before the cruise. Shawn and I were able to use our miles, so that was cool.

In allergy news, I got my epi-pen. I was shocked by how huge it was. Also Shawn and I tried rice milk ice cream and a cashew nut based ice cream. They were both a no go for me. Didn't care for them at all. I tried rice milk in pancakes last weekend instead of the soy and they were an improvement. This weekend, I tried the Ener G Egg Replacer in blueberry muffins. I thought it was fine, and I didn't taste anything off putting. I also tried applesauce in brownies as an egg replacement. They were okay, but just okay. Next time I do brownies, I'll try the egg replacer and see how that goes.

Today I had an unintended egg exposure, because I'm a moron and forgot there's egg in fried rice, until I ate a big chunk of egg in it. My face swelled up again, and I did have some mild digestive distress, so I guess egg is completely out. Sigh.

Anyway, that's all she wrote for this post. Stay tuned.

Devil May Care

2011-04-03T18:10:00.000-04:00

It was a rough week at work. That's all I'm going to say because I've been on a week long rant and my blood pressure just started coming down after a whole weekend of spinning and knitting. I think it may say volumes that I was too ticked to knit or spin during the week, prior to Friday night. But, moving on.

So, in writing news, I haven't done any since last weekend. I might this evening, but we'll see. I've really not been in the mood for it, but I could skip this week and still remain on scheduled given the way the weekends fall in April.

So in spinning news, I finished spinning the 4 oz of Cormo & Silk Roving (75%/25%) from Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm. I like it, but I think I will really enjoy dyeing it to see how the wool and the silk take up the dyestock differently. I'll need to scheduled in a dyeing session at some point as I'll need to do the Optim too. I generally do not knit with white. I don't look good in it, and I am asking for trouble if I knit it for others as well. Ask me about the barbecue sauce incident sometime.

In knitting news, I am still plugging along on reverse engineering the Kyoto Jacket. What is unfortunate, is that I'm having to do this even though I bought the FREAKING pattern. Okay, blood pressure again, moving on.

In food allergy news, I did a "egg cooked in things challenge" last Sunday night after being egg free for two weeks. It did not go well. Which was very disappointing. I had hoped that perhaps that egg cooked in things would be okay. I had a very similar digestive reaction as I do for my milk allergy and my face swelled up, so that instead of a double chin, I had a quadruple chin. I was not a happy camper. I ended up taking a benedryl to try contain some of the reaction. I've also been coconut and almond free along with the egg for the last two weeks (with the exception of the one thing I forgot about yesterday, which I'll discuss further herein). And my face has cleared up remarkably. Which is good, but is also disappointing, because it probably supports me staying away from that stuff. So anyway, I have these chocolate chips that are dairy free. So yesterday I made pancakes from the The Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book: Great Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Treats for the Whole Family and decided to make them chocolate chip pancakes. What I forgot, was why the chocolate chips don't have dairy in them, until I had finished making them, and had sat down to eat them. The Ghiradelli chocolate chips are dairy free because they have coconut in them instead. Sigh. I decided to eat them anyway, and I had the extreme exhaustion reaction afterward. So it validated my decision to just cut coconut out entirely.

Looking forward to more sunny days like today, and hoping that next weekend is beautiful. I'd like to get our bikes out soon. They are saying snow again sometime this week, but I'm going to ignore it until I'm forced to acknowledge reality.

Stay tuned.

Lonestar

2011-03-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a difficult week, in that the way the local political decisions, national political decisions, and global events have taken place, leave me with little hope for the human race. I used to say in the past in times of extreme displeasure with election results, that I'd like to move to another country, but where am I going to go now, Mars? And I'm tired. I'm tired of this one step forward, thirty five steps back stuff. You get tired of fighting and tired of arguing. And I'm concerned, because in the past I've been angry and energized, but now I'm just disheartened and without a lot of hope. Maybe I'm having my second midlife crisis (my first was at 25). So that's all I'm really going to say here. Because sometimes to survive, you just need to focus on the things that actually make you happy for a little while, so you can take a deep breath.

So, on to the normal stuff. I made my monthly writing goal of 8,000 words for March with a new grand total of 81,715 words and 271 pages. As I am aiming for 100,000 words or so, I'm on the home stretch. We had a meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers and they had good comments, and we had a lovely time with Sally's kiddo, who is growing leaps and bounds. What I think I'm going to try to do, is just press forward, get a completed first draft and then go back and refine. I'd like to have the draft to submit to publishers (which I plan to do just for fun, I don't really expect to get published) complete by the end of the year, but no later than my 40th birthday.

In spinning news, I finished the Optim and I manged to do a 2 ply. I plyed the two bobbins I had until the one with less on it ran out, and then I did a center pull ball off the second bobbin, and then used a scale to divide the remaining center pull ball into two, which I plyed against each other. Normally I would use a center pull ball and ply the end against the center, but these singles were too fine and there was just no way without ending up with a tangled freaking mess.

I began spinning 4 oz of Cormo & Silk Roving (75%/25%) from Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm. The interesting thing about it is that the silk and cormo (cormo is a cross breed of sheep, for those of you who are not among the fiber-y), isn't well blended, so I think when I dye it, even if I dye it one color I'm going to get a really interesting effect. I'm not going crazy fine this time, because I think I wouldn't get the effect I'm looking for. I'm trying for about a sport weight.

After much swatching, gnashing of teeth, and swearing, I think I have a sleeve in progress on the Kyoto Jacket. I have no freaking idea if I have enough yarn. I think that when I complete the first sleeve, I'll have a better idea about how it's going to go. Donna D still has some she's willing to trade if I need it, and the good thing is that the way the sweater is constructed I don't think dyelot issues are going to matter that much. Entrelac though, what was I thinking? Although it is worsted weight, so not completely masochistic.

For the last two weeks, in addition to my normal milk free state, I have also been egg and almond free so that I can do a challenge. I'm trying to decide what do to first, egg by itself, or egg baked in stuff, so I can see the reaction. If I can tolerate egg baked in stuff I will be a happy woman. But in furtherance of dealing with the last two weeks, and the next four as I complete the challenges, and to deal with the possibility that I may need to be dairy, egg, and almond free from now on, I did a little bit of shopping at Amazon, and ended up buying six new cookbooks. So on to the cookbook reviews.

First I got:

Amazon.com: The Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book: Great Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Treats for the Whole Family (9781572841024): Kelly Rudnicki: Books This book I felt was worth what I paid for it. There are muffins, quick breads, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, scones, breads, bagels, cookies and bars, frostings, sheet cakes, brownies, cupcakes, coffee cake, pies, cobblers, chocolate shakes, carmel corn and candies. I think it's a well rounded book, and the pictures are great, which I always appreciate in a cook book. I have not tested any recipes yet, but they look easy to follow and there's some great allergy information in the beginning of the book.

Then I got:

Amazon.com: What's to Eat? The Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook (9780970278500): Linda Marienhoff Coss: Books and

Amazon.com: What Else is to Eat? The Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook (9780970278524): Linda Marienhoff Coss: Books

These books range from soups, salads, entrees, side dishes to breakfast items, snacks and desserts and it looks like there are some good things in it, but the real drawback for me is no pictures. I know it's shallow but I like my eye candy. Most of the recipes were fairly standard American fare, but I guess it's good to have a book of standards.

Then I got some vegan cookbooks from the same author. Vegan works well for me because I know there will be no milk and eggs in the recipe, and then I can just watch out for the other things I'm allergic to and add meat if I want. Each of these books doesn't have the pictures I prefer, but the recipes in each book sound wonderful, and most don't use anything other than standard ingredients (i.e. not a lot of replacement fake foods). I was very happy with all three books.

Amazon.com: Supermarket Vegan: 225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World (9780399535611): Donna Klein: Books

What I liked about this book is that most of the ingredients are available at a regular grocery store, but the recipes are inventive, cross cultural, and sound really, really yummy.

Amazon.com: The Tropical Vegan Kitchen: Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Dishes from the Tropics (9781557885449): Donna Klein: Books

This book has recipes from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Thailand, Indonesia, Hawaii, Australia, Africa, and India. The recipes are fabulous, but there are quite a few that involve coconut, which is one of my allergies and which I was aware might be an issue, as Thailand does use quite a bit of coconut in its cuisine. I can't wait to try some of the recipes, reading it makes my mouth water.

Amazon.com: Vegan Italiano: Meat-free, Egg-free, Dairy-free Dishes from Sun-Drenched Italy (9781557884947): Donna Klein: Books

Italian food is something that I miss very much, so I thought this would be a good book to check out. There are some lovely pasta and risottos, salads and soups, and the desserts look amazing. Again, very happy and can't wait to cook some of the recipes.

I'm not sure I blogged about this, but I've been trying recipies from the

Amazon.com: The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook: Delicious Dairy-Free Cheeses and Classic "Uncheese" Dishes (Paperback): Jo Stepaniak (Author): Books

I bought this book at the beginning of the milk free adventure. Last week I tried making the milk free version of alfredo. Which was god awful. But I think that's specific to me. I really, really, really do not like soy milk. At all. And the sauce was primarily soy milk. I had hoped that the other ingredients would cover it up enough. But no, not at all. I took two bites and dumped it down the disposal. The good part was that I had to make "fake" Parmesan to make the recipe, and that's pretty good. It's much better than the commercial fake vegan Parmesan that I had bought.

I also tried the instant cheez-it recipe which is supposed to be like an instant mac and cheese sauce. It worked out okay, but I needed to add a bit more salt and some lemon juice, but it was much better than the dairy free mac and cheese I had bought in the natural food section at Hannaford. I think I could have used a bit more nutritional yeast in the mix a well and it would have been closer.

Today I'm headed to knitting guild and tonight, Shawn and I are going to dinner with Chris and Kristie. Apparently they found a restaurant that makes fried seafood without any dairy or egg in the batter. I could cry with happiness. Seriously. I'm thinking I'm skipping lunch so I can stuff my face. It's been months and months without fried seafood.

Well, this is a long post for me, so see you next week at this same channel.

Rock Lobster

2011-03-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

It was surprising easy to find a song with the word lobster in it, and one I actually knew! Although I had kind of forgotten about until I saw it on Itunes, but still. Anyway Katie and Andrew got their package today, so I can do the reveal on the secret project I did for them. Because seriously, every child needs a lobster. The pattern name is Jacques Crusteau on Ravelry. It cracks me up, but I have a strange sense of humor. I might have to make one for myself, although it seriously distressed Kiwi. There was much growling.

This past week and weekend was mostly about writing. During the week I wrote 1,106 words to make up for the writing I didn't do last week, and this weekend was a challenge weekend so I wrote 5,086 words. I even got to research lobster boats for a slow speed chase scene, so the title of this blog post has dual significance, how's that? I have 760 words to go to make the 8,000 word monthly quota.

In fiber news, I'm working on the Kyoto Jacket, and I am most seriously displeased. The person who wrote what has been alleged to be a pattern needs to be smacked with a wet noodle at least 50-60 times. God help anyone without a lot of knitting experience who tries to decipher it. Basically, I'm working on rewriting and designing the jacket because it is that freaking messed up. I'm attempting a sleeve for the third time, and I may have to start an easy project to have on hand when I feel like I'm going to stroke out.

In spinning news, I've spun about twenty minutes this week. I really need to step it up, but that whole writing thing was in the way this week.

In Shawn news, despite the fact that I really and truly thought it was going to take me another year and half of "encouragement", I came home today to a sculpture! Woo hoo!! And it's Shaun the Sheep :) I think that series is hilarious. I'm going to have to go back and look at my blog entries to see how long it took me this time, versus the poem. I'm thinking a song would be cool next, or a movie on xtranormal.com.

Stay tuned and we'll be right back.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

2011-03-13T09:47:00.000-04:00

I don't normally blog about current events because they generally depress me, but sometimes I hate being right about everything all the time. I've been against nuclear power since forever, because I can't believe in our extreme arrogance that we honestly think we have control over everything. Even without human error, as in Chernobyl, things can go very wrong as the events in Japan have demonstrated. And when things go very wrong with nuclear power, the consequences are just too great. And for what? The technology and science we have available to us now are unreal. Can't someone spend some time on figuring out a renewable resource that isn't going to poison us and the planet? Improve the solar technology so it's more accessible? Is that really too much to ask? Okay, I'm moving on before my head explodes or I smack someone.

This week was busy week. I saw the allergist on Monday. Verdict was food allergies to milk, crab, hazelnuts, coconuts, clams, scallops, eggs, and almonds. Given that I was using a coconut milk creamer for my coffee, and almond milk as my milk replacement, I was a little annoyed. And the egg thing is annoying as well. Between egg and milk, and my husband's diabetes, you can imagine how long grocery shopping took yesterday. Before we left I went though my milk free cookbooks to do some menu planning, and I had to laugh at how many had egg in them. On Friday evening, I did order six new cookbooks from Amazon, three are dairy, egg and nut free recipes and the others are vegan, so I just have to be careful about the use of nuts. Because the egg and the almond scored relatively low on the scale, the allergist suggested doing a "food challenge" to these two ingredients to see how much they really bothered me. This means I wouldn't eat any eggs for two weeks and then eat three servings on one day and watch for the next 48 hours to see what the symptoms are. Since I rarely eat eggs on their own, because I always have had a digestive reaction to them, I think I'll do the challenge, and then repeat it with eggs in baked goods to see if I can get away with it and make my life a little easier. I may do the same thing with almonds, otherwise I have to give up cereal because there isn't another milk replacement product I can stand enough to eat it with cereal. But for the next six weeks or so, other than the challenge days, I'm off both of them. And I'm just giving up coconuts completely, because they tested high enough on the scale, and it's not worth it. Sigh.

On Tuesday I had dinner with the Jetboilers and Ex-Jetboilers, although most of us are now ex-Jetboilers. It was good to see everyone. Ben is now marketing a video about his experience taking a motorcycle from NH to Argentina, and he's giving a talk about it, with pictures, on Tuesday, March 29 · 6:30pm - 8:00pm, at the Hooksett Public Library, 1701B Hooksett Road, Hooksett, NH. I'm going to try to go if anyone is interested. Afterwards I knit with some friends and I got to see Lora K, which was wonderful. Lora's 100 days from her bone marrow and stem cell transplant was yesterday, and I can't wait to take her out to dinner somewhere :)

On Wednesday, I had to run errands and pick up some groceries because Lisa E was coming for dinner on Thursday. Lisa and I made a very eclectic salad and had some braised/grilled brussel sprouts, and played very silly games on the Wii. It was hilarious.

This weekend has been a cleaning and cooking one. The complex is allegedly coming in to fix the ceiling in the bedroom this week, and we needed to get some stuff out of the way. Also, the beginning of my challenge started yesterday, so we needed to grocery shop and I needed to cook so that I have egg and milk free stuff to eat for lunches. So yesterday we made beef stew, I made chicken in gravy for toast (chicken junk as my mother used to put it), and we got some ribs to do in the BBQ Pit crock pot Shawn bought me. But we weren't really thinking about how long that was going to take, so we'll eat them for dinner tonight. Today, I'm finishing up my killer spicy pea soup recipe. If you're interested in it, here it is, developed pre-milk allergy:

Denise’s Pea Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb bag of green split peas
2-3 large onions, chopped
1 bulb or 12-15 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb package of hot Italian sausage
6-7 stalks of celery, chopped
1 lb bag of carrots, chopped
2-3 tablespoons of flour
2-3 tablespoons of margarine or butter
1-2 bay leaves
½ tsp of each of thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, pepper and salt.
1 tablespoon of Sriracha Vietnamese chili paste or Tabasco sauce
Some cheese sliced to put on top of soup, smoked gouda goes well.

Take bag of split peas simmer on stove in a big stock pot in as much water as the bag says for about an hour or until peas are soft and falling apart. Use a hand blender or a real blender to puree the peas and water. Keep on low heat. Then take sausage out of casings and break up. Brown in fry pan along with onions, garlic, spices and chili paste. Once sausage is cooked and onions are translucent, add to stock pot, scraping down all the contents and spices into the pot. Add celery and carrots to stock pot. Simmer for about an hour on medium low heat. Take a sauce pan, and melt margarine or butter in pan and add the flour, mixing it into a solid paste to form a roux. Slowly add a cup or two of the pea soup broth, mixing it in slowly to allow it to thicken. Keep adding broth until the roux is well incorporated into the soup. Add contents of sauce pan to stock pot and mix well. Simmer on medium low until carrot and celery are cooked. Adjust spices if necessary. You can add a bouillon cube to add additional flavor if you wish. Soup should be very thick. Stir it often as it will want to stick to the bottom and can burn to the bottom, which doesn’t taste great.
Serve hot with a slice of cheese on the top of each serving.

In other news, as those of you Ravelry and Facebook are aware, I finished the Vintage Socks, last Sunday night. Woo hoo! I was a mite obsessive last weekend. I also started my project for Andrew and Katie, and I think it will be apropos. I really can't say much here in case Katie reads my blog when I post it on Facebook. I don't think she does, but I'm taking no chances. For those of you on Ravelry, it's my current project.

In writing news, I haven't this week. Ugh. Maybe this afternoon, if I have time after guild.

In fiber news, still spinning the Optim. I did about 20 minutes before work one morning, and about 40 minutes yesterday, so not a lot of progress.

And I think that's it for this weekend. Stay tuned for further updates as we receive them from our affiliates.

She Drives Me Crazy

2011-03-06T07:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, in this case, it's not really a she, it's an it. Unless you anthropomorphize knitting projects the way some men do cars and boats. So I'm totally obsessing over the Vintage Sock. I worked on it all day yesterday, in between eating breaks, showering, and laundry. When I say all day, I mean from about 7:00 a.m. until midnight. I was taking breaks every 45 minutes in hopes of avoiding repetitive movement stress injuries, but that means I'm knitting too much. Also, I took a couple of Advil before bed to lessen any soreness I might have in my hands and shoulders the next day. So you know that's too much. My arms are a bit sore this morning, but my hands are okay, thus far. But in any case, I have about 8 rows left of the main color and then I'll be moving on to the cuff silliness. So it may be possible to finish today. In which case, I'll be needing to find a baby project to do for my cousin Andrew and his wife Katie, as they are due in three months. Any suggestions? They are in Texas, and having the baby in the summer.

This week, I was careful to follow the purple calendar of doom's schedule so that I didn't have to make up any writing this weekend, and could do whatever I wanted to do with the exception of laundry and the dishes. I currently have 74,523 words and 248 pages of the Yet Untitled Novel. Maybe I'll know what to name it when it's done. So far this month I have 1,048 of the 8,000 word goal.

I also worked on my spinning quotas under the 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan and worked on getting some of the newly rediscovered fibers spun up. This is a grey Romney fleece that I hand dyed a hundred years ago (okay, probably at least eight to ten years ago, because I think it was before I bought my Lendrum wheel) because I wanted to see how the grey would take color differently. This was a fleece I bought at the NH Sheep and Wool and prepared myself on my drum carder. And I think it was before I got the good one, or I really sucked at drum carding at that time. This was spun up as a 2 ply at about worsted weight.

I also found a commercial white roving that I hand dyed likely around the same time. I think the purples are different dyes though. I have to say, it made a remarkable difference in spinning to have a well prepared fiber, even though I did have to predraft to remove some compacting and matting that occurred during the dyeing process. This was also a two ply, but I spun it at about a sportweight. It was easier to spin finer as the fiber preparation was better.

I also found some Optim that I bought to try a few years ago. I'm about 95% certain I bought it in that yarn shop I found in Vegas during our honeymoon. If you want to learn more about Optim go here. If you don't, suffice to say that it's a wool that has been subjected to a process to make it finer, and more like silk. It's interesting so far. I'm using the laceweight flyer for the Lendrum at the 44:1 ratio. I'd like to 2-ply it, but I just don't know if I can do it from a center pull ball without ending up with a mess. I may have to navaho ply it, or actually try to come up with two bobbins with the same amounts on them. Hahaha. I wish the pictures conveyed how ridiculously fine this is spinning up.

In other news, I've been off my Zyrtec since Tuesday because I'm having allergy testing on Monday and I have to be off allergy meds for it work. It's freaking killing me. I want to scratch out my eyes, my whole body itches and I appear to have some little hives for some reason, besides the regular respiratory symptoms. I'm going to bring a benedryl and a Zyrtec with me and take them immediately after the testing. Not to sound like a Zyrtec commercial or anything.

Anyway, that's what's been going on this week. Stay tuned.

All I Really Want

2011-02-28T20:41:00.000-05:00

All I really want is for the freaking weather to stop. But I'm sure the "winter sucks" rant is getting boring for some of you. So let me move on the drivers in New Hampshire. I realize that I'm from Maine, and I was raised driving in snow storms, where you had to stick your head out the window to see because the windshield wiper had stopped working (which probably says more about the quality of the car I was driving than the storms), and the people driving around me then also knew how to drive in the snow, but seriously? It's all I can do not to stop my car and smack people for stupidity. Okay, end rant. I'll behave now, I promise. Sort of. I may or may not be crossing my fingers behind my back.

In fiber news, for those of you not on Facebook, I finished the Vintage Sock last weekend.

Just one more sock to go. I did finally get the second one cast on last night and I 've got the leaf sew in the leaf hole, so we're ready to cruise on it, once I finish this blog post. I did take a quick break in between to make my friend Kate a coffee sleeve in a fabulous fuschia color, that coincidentally matches a scarf she already owns.

I also worked on my monthly spinning quota for the 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction plan. Good news, I've met the spinning 4 ounces of fiber per month goal for January, February, and most of March. Bad news, in poking around in my fiber closet, I found a bunch of roving and fiber that I did not remember I had, and which, of course, is not inventoried on my Ravelry account. Bad news, as I spin it up, my Ravelry inventory count will increase, rather than decrease. Good news, if I spin it up, it will take less room in the closet. Trying to think positive here, which as most of you know, is a challenge for me.

In writing news, I hosted a meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers on Saturday, and I think it was productive. The bruschetta stuff Mary Kate brought was amazing. However, as February was a short month, and I had slacked a bit, I needed to write 3,445 words by the end of the weekend to make February's monthly word goal of 8,000 words. I managed it, but I'm not sure how good it is. But I'm working toward the action packed end of the book, as I still have to shoot a couple of characters in it. As of Sunday, I had 73,475 words and 244 pages. As I'm shooting for around 100,000 words, I'm pretty excited that I think I'm nearing the end. I think it may go over a bit, but I'm getting there :)

In health news, I had Monday off and visited the orthopedist and the allergist. The orthopedist said I have a really bad bone bruise and it would go away eventually, but might take awhile. The allergist is going to test me for all tree nuts, eggs, soy, peanuts, and a couple of other random things next Monday. However, I have to stop taking my Zyrtec tomorrow, so I might be miserable the rest of the week. We'll see how it goes. Shawn took Kiwi to the groomers and got her wings trimmed and her nails de-sharpened. (She has already resumed sharpening them, the hateful little twerp). Shawn couldn't resist getting her some new toys. Here's some gratitious cute Kiwi pictures as well. Kiwi is at this moment sitting on my shoulder attempting to sharpen one of my fingernails. She's a very odd bird.

I'm fairly pleased that I've made it two months into New Years Resolution Writing Plan and 2011 Yarn & Fiber Stash Reduction Plan, without violating it, and meeting the goals. Hopefully, I can keep a momentum going. Although, seriously, I'm not going anywhere or doing anything next weekend period, except maybe go to guild.

Stay tuned for further updates as they come in.

Money That's What I Want

2011-02-19T18:25:00.000-05:00

Today I held a private knitting class on fixing errors at my apartment to members of the Concord Knitting Meetup as a fundraiser to help with Lora K's medical bills. I just want to thank all those who attended and those who made contributions, even though you didn't attend, specifically, Mary T, Mary S, Tracy B, Nancy B, Sarah A, Heather M, Roberta L, Ellen R and Stephanie S. With all of your help, we were able to raise $550.00. Woo-hoo!!

Because some members of the Concord group could not attend, there is a second session being planned, so if any other of my knitting friends are interested in attending, please email me and I'll put you on the information list.

This week has mostly been spent dealing with a difficult week at the office, preparing for the class, cleaning my train wreck of an apartment, and getting snacks made. I also had dinner with some of my former Jetboil co-workers, Kristin and Lisa at Kristin's. It was lovely to see them both.

I did do some writing on Monday, so I now have a grand total of 70,006 words and 232 pages of the yet untitled novel. I need to write another 3,445 words this month if I'm going to make my monthly goal of 8,000 words until the thing is done. I wonder how long it will take me to title the novel, when I finish. I haven't thought at all about what to do about that. Maybe I can brainstorm with the Misplaced Modifiers next week during our monthly meeting.

In knitting news, I'm only a few rows away from starting to incorporate the leaves into the cuff of the first Vintage Sock. I'm hoping that I might be able to finish the first sock this weekend, as I have Monday off, with the exception of visiting the orthopedist and the allergist. I'm also hoping to get some writing in on Monday.

For the rest of the evening and for most of tomorrow though, I plan to do nothing but sit and knit, and I may even have a glass of wine. Maybe two even.

Stay tuned for further updates at this same bat-channel.

The Hounds of Winter

2011-02-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, haven't posted in a while. I've been a bit aggravated. Remember the snow rant? Instead of me repeating the rant, let's just imagine it in your head and increase the intensity by a factor of 8. So here's pictures of not the last storm, but the last big storm, last Wednesday. These were taken from the windows where I work. So of course, when I get home that night, I end up having to shovel a spot out, because god forbid my complex plan for larger storms. So I sent a email complaint to the complex manager. Then of course, my karma bites me on the ass, because the following night I spend doing my taxes until late, and when I finally get into bed, I look up and see a wet spot on the ceiling 5 feet long and 1 foot wide or so. So of course it's past 11 pm and I have to call and report it, since there were water bubbles in the ceiling paint. They tell me to stick a screwdriver through the dry wall and let it drain. Which was just lovely. It was a steady stream for about half an hour. The picture is pre-hole punch. Needless to say I got a whole lot of sleep that night. And of course Shawn was in Minneapolis. No word on when it's going to be fixed. Shocker.

So anyway, last weekend (not this past weekend, but the one before that) we had pizza with Mary Kate and Daniel. Daniel has been experimenting with making pizza dough, and since Mary Kate and I both have dairy issues, he made one using the Daiya vegan cheese. It was much better than the last time I tried it. Daniel mixed the cheddar and mozzarella versions together and it definitely made the pizza more cheesy. It was lovely and the crust was really good too.

Last weekend I also managed to do some spinning, working on the second 2 oz roving of the Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm Hand Painted Cashmere & Tussah Silk Top in colorway Greylock. I got about half way through the roving, but still it's progress. I also met my writing 8,000 word goal for January and I now have about 65.451 words. I'm hoping to have a completed first draft by May. However, I've been slacking off since, so I have to get it together.

Last Monday I had my doctor's appointment and got set up with a new allergist to ferret out another possible food allergist, and to check out my knee. Good news, my knee cap isn't broken (after having x-rays), bad news, I have to go to an orthopedist to see whether I might have a cartilage tear. Sigh.

This past week, I didn't meet my writing goal. I'm going to try to fit it in sometime this weekend amongst all the myriad other things I have to do. I did manage to get most of the taxes done while Shawn was in Minneapolis. I just need to have one more document, and I can pay off most of our cruise we booked for December. This past weekend was weird. I did a lot of knitting. Friday I went to bed early, so of course I woke up at 3:00 am on Saturday. So I spent most of the day knitting and working on my vintage sock. There's a picture of the toe leaf, and the toe shaped hole in the toe I had to knit. Then there's the picture of the toe, after I sewed in the leaf. If I had to do these socks all over again, I'd just knit the toe normally and applique the leaf on the toe. I think this is a detail that's just too fiddlely and not worth the trouble.

In other news, Donna D helped me engineer a trade to get around my stash reduction plan rules so that I could get enough Noro Silk Garden in color 8 to do the Kyoto Jacket. I traded 3 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in color 292 for 6 balls of Donna's Noro Silk Garden in color 8. So I reduced my Ravelry stash by one type of yarn, my net loss after knitting the jacket will still be 12 skeins as a result of the trade, I didn't buy any yarn, and Donna reduced her stash by 3 skeins of yarn. Everybody wins!

Sunday was my birthday, I turned 39. Shawn and I were going to go out, but it turned out the places he was supposed to call to see if they could accommodate my dairy allergy were all closed, so we just went to Free Range Fish on Second Street and got some lobsters. I didn't get a sculpture for my birthday. Just stating that for the record, although Shawn does not read my blog.

That's about it for this segment. Stay tuned for further updates.

Four Leaf Clover

2011-01-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, be warned, rant beginning. Snow. And more snow. You know, being from Maine, you'd think I'd have some tolerance for the white stuff. You'd be completely and utterly wrong. When I was younger, I used to not really mind it, but felt no affection for it. In my early twenties, I could put up with it, although it annoyed me and got in my way. Now, I completely despise it. Seriously, if I never saw another snow flake again in my entire freaking life, I'd be happy. My mother keeps asking me why I live here, but I hate the heat. The thought of 115 degrees in the summer in Arizona makes my skin crawl too. Somebody find me a place I can go live that's 70 degrees all year round, and I will be a happy woman. Rant off.

In other news, I had a really nasty stomach and intestinal flu on Monday and Tuesday. I didn't feel like knitting what I had on the needles, because it was too complicated and required too much thinking, so I ended up spinning for two days in between flying trips to bathroom, as it requires very little movement and no thinking. I discovered a potential problem with my stash reduction plan. Remember when I said not all my fleece, top and roving was in my Ravelry inventory? Well, as I spin it up, it gets added to Ravelry database, which increases my overall total. I'm now considering whether to go ahead and inventory everything so that I have a solid number to try to reduce, but I don't know how crazy that is. In any case, the stuff I spun up this week was not in Ravelry.

I spun up a Grafton Fibers (now Dyak Fibers) multicolor batt, with greens blues and black. I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't realize I hadn't documented it in Ravelry. I did a 2-ply, plying from a center pull ball wound from the bobbins, and got this interesting striped effect. It'll be interesting to knit.

The second roving I spun was a Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm Hand Painted Cashmere & Tussah Silk Top in colorway Greylock. I have two of them, each is 2 ounces, and I've spun up one of them. I used my very, very fine flyer for the Lendrum wheel and spun it very fine. I Navajo plied it, to preserve the color changes, which results in a 3-ply and it's still not more than a sport weight, although I haven't done the wraps per inch or the McMorran Yarn Balance to determine the yardage. The other reason I chose Navajo plying, is that the singles were so fine that attempting to do a 2-ply from a center pull ball would have been impossible and I would have ended up with a snarled mess. I could have tried to even the bobbins up to do a 2-ply from the bobbins, but I hate doing that.

With respect to the 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan's goal of spinning 4 ounces per month, I've completed January and February's required totals and I'm working on the goal for March. I'd like to continue to spin more than the plan requires, but I figure this will give me a safety valve if I end up having a bad month later on.

In knitting news, I finished the leaves for the Vintage Sock last night. All 34 are complete. I started the toe for the sock, which is my first toe up sock. It had been a long time since I had tried the cast on method used, so it took me three tries before I got it moving. I'm about to start making the hole for the inlaid leaves. The directions I thought were fairly unclear. I had to read them 4 times before I got what the heck she was talking about, and then it was late, so I decided that I might need to tackle them with a slightly less tired brain. We'll see how it goes today. This morning I blocked the leaves so the two toe leaves would be ready when I needed them. Right now I'm doing it on two circulars, but I'm going to move a twelve inch circular as soon as I can.

I've also encountered another dilemma with my stash reduction plan. I found a great pattern, which you can find here, if you have a Ravelry account. I have yarn, Noro Silk Garden, that would be perfect. However, I only have 9 balls of it, not the 15 I need. I bought the pattern already, but I'm still debating whether it's permissible to violate the no yarn purchasing provisions of the plan to get rid of the 9 balls in stash. It would be a net reduction of stash, but it would violate the terms under which I am currently permitted to buy yarn. Sigh. The knitter peeps have decreed that the purchase would be justified under the spirit of the plan, but I'm having issues with the technical violation. Apparently, that whole law school thing is messing with my brain.

In writing news, I'm still complying with my writing plan, although not when I'm actually scheduled to do it. But in any case, I made my 1,000 words this week. Yesterday before the meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers, I gained 1,165 words for a grand total of 64,407 words and 213 pages on the novel. The meeting was at Mary Kate R's and she had some lovely dairy free snacks. There were herbed biscuits that were yummy (I really need that recipe), and lovely open faced tea sandwiches, as well as mini chocolate cupcakes. The sandwiches were soy cream cheese with mango chutney, shrimp and some green leaf, maybe watercress. They were too round for spinach. (Mary Kate, feel free to weigh in here). There were also spinach hummus with cucumbers. It was wonderful. Sally H-D brought the law firm (aka her son, who is about five or six months old now, the kid has a really long name, hence, the law firm), and he is really starting to look like his sister. Sally's book, her Ph.D thesis on Peyton Place, is now in production. Yay!

Shawn and I also began planning a cruise this week. We haven't booked it yet and we're still working on it, but I just want to say that it's all Alison M's fault. After she went to St. Thomas last week, I kept thinking about how nice it would be to go on vacation again. I'm hoping the tax return will cover it, since the one we're looking at seems pretty inexpensive.

On Monday I'm headed to the doctor. I messed up my knee the day after Christmas by falling on the concrete steps going into my apartment (my fault, I tripped on my coat) and it's not better. If I bend too far, I get a fuzz burning numb pain. Which keeps moving. Of course, on Friday I took a dive in the parking lot at work and cracked it again, so I'm thrilled about that. (Note rant about snow above.) I'm also suspecting that I have another undiagnosed food allergy, as I've had a couple of incidents that seemed like the same reaction although I had no exposure to milk. Cross your fingers that nothing shows up.

And that's all the news that's fit to print. Stay tuned.

Twisted

2011-01-16T10:32:00.000-05:00

So this has been a slightly twisted week, thus the song title "Twisted." It's a really cool song actually. If you're following along on Itunes, I'd check out the versions by Joni Mitchell or Anne Ross.

I might have mentioned getting a calendar to manage my New Year's resolutions. I got a purple monthly calendar from Staples, which Mary Kate R. has affectionately named "the purple calendar of doom." Me, being me, have scheduled out time to work on both my resolutions. What is amusing to me, is that although I don't necessarily follow the calendar, if there's a time and a goal written down, I will make it up in the same week even if I don't comply with the original plan. For example, in order to make my new goal of a thousand words a week during those weeks in which I am not participating in a challenge, I scheduled writing time on Monday and Thursday from 7 to 9 pm. On Monday I blew it off because by the time I finished the laundry, blocking a sweater, and making dinner it was 10 pm and I was too tired. On Thursday I blew it off because my back was a wreck after digging out. So on Saturday, I made it up. However, if I don't schedule something, I won't do it. And it has to be written down somewhere. If it's just a vague intention, I won't do it.

So to report, on the writing front, I finished the challenge with Linda D, last weekend and gained 5,088 words, 18 more pages, for a grand total of 61,974 words and 205 pages. Yesterday, in making up for blowing off the regularly scheduled writing, I gained is up 1,268 words, for a grand total of 63,242 words and 211 pages. I'll be posting the file to the Misplaced Modifiers site for the meeting next week later today.
I did use the headset to use the speech recognition feature built into Windows 7 to dictate some of it.

In spinning news, I'm supposed to spin 4 oz a month. So yesterday I spun some roving from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks some time ago I think at NH Sheep and Wool. It's a 50/50 wool silk and it was lovely. It took a bit longer than the two hours I'd booked to spin it though. I decided that I wanted the barberpole effect with this yarn, although I considered a navaho ply, so it's plyed on itself. It's quite soft, and it took care of one half of my goal for the month. Woo hoo!

In knitting news, I have 24 out of 34 leaves done. I have two more of the copper pennies color and then eight in spring green and then I can block them and start the actual sock itself. It's a toe up sock and the toe is a bit fiddlely as the toe has a leaf shaped hole in it so that you can sew one of the leafs into it. Honestly, I'm going to try it, but if it's really god awful, I'm going knit a plain toe and applique the stupid leaf on it and call it good.

Lastly, as I reported above, I got the Tramline Cable Sweater blocked. I wore it to work on Friday. I had some pictures taken of me in it. However, none of the pictures that I actually look attractive in, had sufficient detail of the sweater, and the pictures which have sufficient detail of the sweater, I look horrible in. The detail of the sweater picture won out, and here it is. Yes, I'm well aware I'm not photogenic at all, damn it.

On Friday, Shawn and I went to Le Gourmet Chef to get more CO2 for the Soda Stream machine and get some soda flavors. While we were there, I saw a silicone egg poacher that you could use in the microwave and the stove top. So I had to get it, because I love poached eggs, but I never make them because I hate the mess. If you're doing it on the stove top, you put the bottom part in a skillet with 3/4 of an inch of simmering water, crack the eggs in the cups, and cover the skillet.

I just tested the stove top version so far, as I am suspicious of the microwave version. For that you crack the eggs in the cups, put the clear plastic cover on and microwave on medium for 30-45 seconds. The stove top version worked, but I may need to cook them a little bit longer than the directions say.

And that's most of the news this week. Say tuned.

Sculpture Garden

2011-01-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

This week was the first week back at work after vacation. The less said about that, probably the better. So in fiber related news, I finished the Tramline Cable sweater, as you can see from the picture. If you want to see the blow by blow on my Ravelry account, the public link is here. I haven't blocked it yet because I don't have a bucket that's really big enough, and I don't want to wash it in my 20 quart stock pot, so I need to go get a plastic tote or something to wash it in. That's why there's no picture of me wearing it yet, although I do like the fit other than the longer arms, but I can correct that with blocking.

So on Sunday that meant that I had to pick my next project so I'd have something to knit at Guild. I kept mulling over options until I nearly ran out of time, if I was going to wind some yarn before going to knitting. So I ended up grabbing one of the kits, Vintage Socks by the Tsarina of Tsocks (Lisa Grossman). Which of course is insane, but it does comply with Item 6 on my 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan. Each sock has 17 leaves on it, which have to be knit separately. I have seven leaves knit so far. The color way is Pinot Noir, and I bought the kit a year, maybe two years ago at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool. It's actually not been too bad yet (said while looking above for the knitting gods to strike me dead with a 14" aluminum #11), so hopefully it'll go quickly. The leaves also have to be left on live stitches for an integrated bind off at the end, so that'll be lots of fun too. Ha. In any case, this whole thing should give some of you a good laugh.

In other fiber related news, the very last yarn purchase of 2010, prior to the implementation of the 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan, arrived this week. I also got Margaret Stoves' Wrapped in Lace book, which is fabulous, and Double Knitting Reversible Two-Color Knitting by M'Lou Baker. The double knitting book its fabulous for ideas, interesting patterns, and technique, but not so fabulous for range of sizes. Everything appears to be one size. So if I were to actually use this book to knit a project, I would forced into redesigning most things to fit the intended person. Most sizing is not fat friendly either.

On Tuesday, a weird thing happened. I went to the drycleaner to pick up my clothes so I would have something to wear to work the next day, and when I went in, there was a guy making coffee at the free coffee station. After I told the attendant what I was looking for, the guy says to me, "Hey, I'll make you a killer deal on some meat I have out in the truck, I'll take checks, credit cards, cash, food stamps, whatever." I said "What?" and then he explained that he delivered meat door to door, and he had one last crate to get rid of to make some incentive with his company. I was so puzzled I said I'd look at it, and he said he'd wait for me outside. After getting my clothes, and making the attendant promise to call the cops if the guy threw me in the back of the truck, I went outside. The truck had painted insignia on it, and the guy pulls out this box and starts showing me the frozen vacuum packed meat. It had 6 ribeyes, 8 filets, 5 NY strip, 6 flat iron, 5 beef loin, and some hamburgers. He showed me a flyer that package was normally $389, and said he'd give it to me for $200. I said I couldn't do that, it was too high and there were only the two of us. I said I'd take the ribeyes and the filets, and we haggled the price on that to $80. Then he said he wasn't really supposed to break up a crate, and that it was really worth it to him to sell this whole thing to make this incentive, so he'd give me the whole thing for $127. So I said okay, and bought the crate. So either I got a killer deal or I got taken and the steaks suck. We'll see soon, we're defrosting some to try this weekend. I think that's one of the most random things that has ever happened to me.

On Wednesday I headed to knitting guild, working on leaves of course. This week's meeting was at Borders in Concord, and as we were leaving, we were looking at all the kits they have in the clearance section. Some of you may know that I have requested, repeatedly, that Shawn make me a sculpture. I have said that it could be out of playdoh, mashed potatoes, pipe cleaners, etc. So when I saw this kit, it was only natural that I bought it for Shawn to assist him in his endeavors. Shawn was not enthused, and called me a dork. But how is my encouragement going to work if the raw materials are not readily available for him to use? I'm not sure this changes my odds of receiving a sculpture in less than a year, but, hey, can't hurt, right?

Yesterday my Dansko purple clogs arrived. I love, love, love them. I nearly cried, but restrained myself to squealing and jumping up and down like a little girl. Yes, I know, I have no shame. But I truly can't convey how fabulous they are.

Last night we went to Taipei & Toyko with Chris and Kristie L, and Chris and I started drinking Zombies. They were really yummy and really freaking strong. We had a really good time, although my legs weren't working properly by the time we left, and I had to let Shawn drive us home. Kristie got a new job with new hours so we may actually be able to see each other more often, which is really good.

This weekend, I'm supposed to be doing a challenge with Linda D so that I have something written prior to the next meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers. I have to have 5,000 words by Sunday at 8:00 pm. As of 9:55 a.m. this morning, I have nothing. So I better get to it, now that blogging has given my foggy brain cells a warm up.

Stay tuned for further updates as they occur.

My New Philosophy

2010-12-31T11:16:00.000-05:00

Hi all, this is the New Year's Resolution blog. Shocker, I know, as it's New Year's Eve. As some of you may know, I have a lot of yarn. I mean a lot. According to the last counts on Ravelry, plus yarn that has been ordered but not received, I have 337 different yarns. This does not include the skeins. So, for example, if I have 15 skeins of a purple heather Cascade 220, it only counts as one yarn in Ravelry. Now granted, I do only have one skein of some yarns, particularly laceweights, but you can see the scale of the problem. This also does not include all my fiber, meaning roving, fleece and top, that I have yet to spin on the Lendrum. Which increases the scale of the problem. So, given that it's that time of year, I've decided that I need to embark on a new yarn and fiber stash reduction plan. (And I don't want to hear any giggles about previous attempts, it's a new year and a new plan.)

2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan Rules:

1. No yarn purchases during 2011 with two exceptions (there have to be some exceptions or I'd go off my head):

The Webs May Tent Sale - However, all yarn purchased must be at least 60% off retail.
Stitches East - However, only yarn that is not available locally or cannot be easily purchased on the web may be purchased.

2. Books, patterns, and needles may be purchased, but with the purpose of using yarn already contained in the stash.

3. All projects shall be knit with stash yarn with the exception of any group baby blanket projects (said hoping that no one in my knitting group reproduces in the coming year).

4. Projects shall be chosen with the aim of reducing overall space amounts (i.e. 600 yards of worsted takes up more space than 600 yards of fine laceweight).

5. At least one project shall utilize my handspun yarn, which had already been spun as of 12/31/2010.

6. At least one project shall utilize a kit which had been purchased prior to 12/31/2010.

9. With respect to the roving, top, and fleece in the stash, at least 4 ounces of fiber shall be spun each month. (Although this adds to the yarn, yarn takes up less space than roving, top and fleece.)

That's the fiber and yarn plan. On to the writing plan.

Again, as many of you know, I'm working on a novel. However, I've not been working on it very hard as of late. I pretty much haven't done anything since our last meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers. And I'm over the half way point, so I just need to get things moving along. Therefore, I've concocted a cunning plan, as laid out below:

2011 Novel Completion Plan:

1. At least once a month, I will participate in a Challenge Writing Weekend, whether anyone participates with me or not, in which the goal is to write 5,000 words over the course of a weekend. (Linda D and I occasionally do these challenges.)

2. In addition to the Challenge Written Weekends, I will average a 1,000 a week during the non-Challenge Writing Weekend weeks during the each month.

3. This schedule shall continue until the novel is complete.

I will be heading to Staples later today to get a 2011 calendar to help implement both plans.

In other news, I have been off this week, which was good and bad. Good in that I'm cruising on the Tramline Cable Sweater, and I have a shot of completing the last sleeve today or tomorrow. I'd like to finish the thing today so I can start the 2011 Yarn and Fiber Stash Reduction Plan fresh, but that's just my OCD talking. And I would like to be able to add the yardage to my totals for this year...but again, I'm being rigid in my counting hierarchy again. The week was bad in that I kept buying stuff. See the Mountain Colors Half Crepe yarn to your left that I purchased at the Elegant Ewe. I also put in an order at Knitpicks for the new Margaret Stove book, the double knitting book that I've wanted since Stitches, and a couple of balls of the new Chroma in fingering weight. Then there was an order for vinyl project bags to US Box, an order for work tops, and an order to Zappos for my nth pair of purple shoes. Not to mention the shoes I bought at DSW and the laptop speakers I got at Bestbuy. Apparently, if I work, I'm too tired to shop. Must remember this.

Anyway, I wish you all the best in the New Year and hope that you all accomplish anything you resolve to do. I'm crossing my fingers for myself.

Stay tuned for further updates.

A Wonderful Christmas Time

2010-12-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, first things first - I did not receive a sculpture. Repeat, I did not receive a sculpture. Well, okay, I admit that I didn't really expect to get it this year, but I wondered if Shawn would decide to relieve himself of "reminders" for the next year or so until he finally caves. However, he could have decided that if he caves, I will come up with some other request that will be worse. Logical, I suppose. Poor Shawn :)

My last day of work was Thursday evening, and we grabbed some dinner and played the new Wii Party game Shawn picked up for me. Unfortunately, dinner made a rapid reappearance. Peking duck...eeww. I was not feeling well for most of the next day, headache, chills and other digestive complaints, so that totally blew our plan for

having lobsters and steamers on Christmas Eve, which I do every year. So the plan is to fit in today with our other plans. The oncoming blizzard may throw wrench into that, but we'll see. Yesterday I was fine, so we headed to Shawn's parents for Christmas.

They were very kind to us this year, which they always are. Our dvd player in the bedroom blew so they got us a blue ray/dvd player, which we'll use in the living room and relegate the dvd in the livingroom to the bedroom. I also got a new yarn swift from Knitpicks which is a nice upgrade from my old swift which is also on its very last legs. I just wound a skein with the old one on Monday and wondered if it was going to make it through the skein. And the new one is larger and looks like it'll handle heavier skeins better.

I made the spinach dip with tofu again, but this time, I added a bit of some Amazon Salsa Verde Picante Hot Sauce, an extra garlic clove and some Penzey's Garlic Salt. You couldn't taste the heat of the hot sauce, but it perked it up remarkably. I also made a tossed salad, which we still have gallons of in the fridge. I guess I'll have plenty to eat this week. I knew there wouldn't be any desserts I could eat there, and being sick the day before, I decided on Christmas morning I didn't feel like getting up extra early to make one for me. So when I got home last night, I made some Hot and Spicy brownies. I'd been having this idea running through my head for a bit, so I did a quick search and came up with a recipe. You just take a brownie mix and add a teaspoon of chili powder and 3/4 of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. They were good, you didn't really taste it until the after bite and then it was a warm heat.

I have been obsessing on the Tramline Cable Sweater. I finished the front on the 20th, and I already have this much of the first sleeve. I'm off this week, except for quick visits to the office, and I'm hoping to make major progress. I'll have to think about what to do next. I am really focusing on stash reduction, so I'm trying to use worsted weight or larger. We'll see.

Stay tuned.

Drops of Brandy

2010-12-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

This past week was fairly busy. There was a farewell party at Hermano's in Concord this past Monday for a co-worker who is moving on to a new job. After that I had to hit Petsmart for a new aquarium heater as my previous heater had attempted fishicide by boiling on Sunday (I hadn't noticed the thing had malfunctioned until the temperature had reached 92 degrees), and then I had to hit Hannafords for various supplies and gift cards for my nephews. The following night I had a Jetboil current and ex's dinner, and then I had to hit RiteAid for cards to mail the gift cards to my nephews. Apparently the smart-ass Christmas cards I already had in my possession were not appropriate for young recipients. (Okay, so I get that the one I had with Santa talking about his new all protein diet and the reindeer running around looking for other missing reindeer might not have been the best choice.) Wednesday was a quiet evening and I worked on the front of the Tramline Cable Sweater. Thursday evening I went to Alison M's and got to see Edgar's Christmas photos. That dog is crazily cute. I also received a really kind gift of Dream in Color Smooshy in Cashmere in a fabulous purple from Mary T. It's gorgeous, I just want to roll in it.

This week my friend Mindy C finished the sweater that she's been working on, and that I've been helping her with during our lunches at work. It's for her nephew and it came out really well. I'm curious to see what she picks for her next project.

In other obsessive knitter news, I have been kind of bummer that Knitmeter doesn't work on facebook any more, because the application on facebook allowed you to calculate how much you had knit since you started keeping track. The web version of this application only allowed you to calculate how much you had knit in the past month, last year, etc., which was not as cool as far as I was concerned. It finally occurred to me that I could do much the same thing, by designing my own spreadsheet on Excel. So I did. So, not counting the yarn I've knit in the Tramline Cable Sweater (because apparently my OCD does not allow me to count the yarn until the project is complete), I've knit 7,971 yards or 4.528977 miles since August 29, 2009. If you want a copy of the worksheet with the formulas, email me.

This weekend we were slugs. Very much slugs. We didn't really do much. I spent most of the weekend working obsessively on the Tramline Cable Sweater and listening to audio books at the same time. We both had today off, but we still were slugs. I finished the front of the sweater about half an hour ago. Yay!! I think I managed to get through the front without screwing up any cable crosses this time. I've looked over it carefully twice, so probably I just need to show it to another knitter so they can spot it in a heartbeat. There are two sleeves to go, so I'm two-thirds of the way through. It's not eating as much yarn as I'd really hoped though, even though I added three inches of length to the sweater. I'm only through about six skeins for both the front and back. Oh well.

Three days of work this week, and then I have the following week off. Unfortunately, Shawn has this week off, because the whole seniority system thing at his job sucks. Again, oh well. I'm looking forward to Christmas Eve, Shawn and I will be exchanging our letters and having lobsters. For the last few years, we've exchanged letters to each other rather than buy each other more junk. We buy quite enough junk for ourselves throughout the year, without adding to it. I much prefer getting the letter than anything else Shawn could get for me. Unless it's a sculpture he's made himself. For those of you that remember the whole poem thing, since I finally did get the poem, I've moved on to requesting that Shawn create me a sculpture. I've said that it could be a sculpture of anything, even an abstract concept, and it could be made of clay, playdoh, mashed potatoes, etc. Shawn, to date, is not cooperating. But, it took me a year and half to get the poem, and I've only started the campaign in earnest recently, so I'm not expecting it will be for Christmas this year. For those of you wondering at my candor, Shawn does not read my blog unless harassed to do so. Plus, he's well aware of the campaign at this point.

That's pretty much it for this report. Have a happy holiday for those of you that do that kind of thing. And for those of you that don't, have a good time too.

Stay tuned for further updates as they occur.

I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

2010-12-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

This week's song title is appropriate because it's been fricking cold. I hate winter and I hate wearing coats and bundling up, and I hate having to spend what I have to spend to have a nice winter coat that goes with suits. But, I had finally broken down and ordered a winter coat on Tueday or Wednesday. My old coat was the one I had when I was still at Bianco, and the lining was pretty much gone, and I had beaten the crap out of it, so it desperately needed replacement. I had even succumbed to beginning to wear mittens, by Tuesday, in hopes that if my hands were warm, I could go without a coat a little longer, I mean, hey, it was only 30 degrees, that's not bad right? When I ordered the coat, I thought, oh, I'm not paying for expedited shipping either, I can make it to December 16th, that won't be a problem. So of course, the temperature had to drop. It was 8 degrees yesterday when I got in the Santa Fe to go to work. If I had just ordered the freaking coat in October, it'd probably be 40 degrees right now. I need to move some place where it's 70 degrees all year round. It has not yet truly snowed, meaning that snow has not actually accumulated on the ground after falling, but if I never see another snowflake, it'll be perfectly fine with me. Sorry for the rant, but it's that cranky time of year before I have accepted the fact that experiencing another f-ing winter is inevitable at this point.

In other news, I gave Elaina's scarf to her and made her pose for pictures. She requested that I obscure her face, so I played on photoshop a bit and made it happen. I also wrote up the pattern this morning and posted it on Ravelry. You can get to the pattern by going to http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/elainas-small-arrow-lace-scarf and it's a $3.00 pattern.

I had considered doing it for less, but I did compile a chart for the written pattern instructions I had used, so I thought it was worth that for my work. In other fiber news, I visited the Elegant Ewe this week, which is always a bad idea for me. I had received an email from them stating that they had some Cascade 220 sport weight in. So I had to go look that that. They had two versions, one that is a two ply and has a more rustic look, and one looked more like worsted weight Cascade, with 4 or 5 plies (I didn't count). I would have liked to try the one that looked more like the worsted but they didn't have any colors I liked. The two ply version is pretty, but I'm not sure how the stitch definition will be, but I thought I'd try a skein out. Guess what color I got. I also ended up getting the Winter 2010 Spin-Off magazine, the Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders book (which has one of Gina H's patterns in it...yay Gina!!), and Kelly's Cake Tank Pattern, which does not appear to be on the website yet. It's really cute though, and it goes up to 55" for those of us who are of size.

In writing news this week, I have not done any. Whatsoever. I'm not sure what is up with that. It's either because we don't have a meeting this month due to the holiday or it's my aggravation with the cold. Plus the office is just ridiculously overrun with stuff that we moved to make the rest of the apartment tolerable for Thanksgiving. I may be forced into a clean and purge in the office this weekend. It depends on my actually motivation levels. In related news, I did finally read Peyton Place. One of our writing group members, Sally H-D, wrote her Ph.D. thesis on the book, and has a book contract for her thesis, and we've been providing critiques. I'm sure the critiques will be more helpful now that I've actually read the book.

That's about it for this week. Tune in next week at this same channel.

The Song of Purple Summer

2010-12-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, remember how I said I was naming all my blog posts after songs? So sometimes I get stuck and I go searching for stuff on the Itunes store. This week I needed something with purple, for reasons that will become self evident shortly, so I searched. I came up with this song. I don't like it the song from the 30 second blurb I listened to, but who (meaning those obsessed with the color purple) could not like this title?? I wish I'd thought of it, I'd love to write a book with this title. Anyway, the summer part is not apropos either, but still.

This week not much was going on. I had my first full work week since October, as I'm using up vacation days before I lose them at the end of the year. I keep forgetting to schedule vacation now that I'm not sick all the time from the stress of practicing law. I went to Borders on Wednesday night for the Concord Knitting group, and they had some fake trees up. Does this scream my name or what? If it were reasonably priced (i.e. not $119) dollars, and if I felt it was safe to put up a tree with an overly curious, destructive and obnoxious parrot in our household, I'd get it in a second, just for the laugh value. One of the knitters suggested I could trim it with hot pink flamingo lights. I liked it, in the "it's so bad, it's hilarious" mind frame. Speaking of which I've been saying I'm going to do this for sometime, so here it is. This is the Christmas lobster that I bought at Hannaford for $6.00 that sings Jingle Bell Rock. It's my favorite thing. Shawn hates it, but it slays me. Here's the video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SHdMbKDPQ

I also finished the scarf I designed for Elaina this week, and I blocked it this morning. I'm hoping to get a better picture of it once it's dry, and I think I'll write it up for ravelry. Not sure I'm actually going to charge for it, but we'll see how I feel about it after writing it.

Not much else going on. We took Kiwi to have her wing feathers and her nails trimmed yesterday. She now has more toys to destroy and one of them is even Christmas themed, with bells. That bird loves trying to kill bells. Not sure what is up with that, but hey, keeps her busy.

Anyway, that's all I have to report at this time. Stay tuned.

I'm so Tired (by the Beatles)

2010-11-28T11:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, I don't really know what happened, whether it was a bug, or just a cooking and cleaning hangover from Thanksgiving, but I did zippo on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I didn't really even knit, even though I said I was going to. I even slept, during the day, which is not normal for me at all. I basically wrote a blog post, took a three hour nap, and picked out the lobsters Shawn got, and that was it. Yesterday, the most I did was boil the turkey carcass and strain it and sort out the bones. I didn't even make the soup. I'm glad it's still cold enough because the stock pot had to go on the balcony. I didn't even write. I just felt like I should be sleeping all day, but I didn't. I did knit a bit yesterday though. I feel a bit better this morning, I'm tired, but not so tired that my face hurts and I'm not falling asleep in my knitting.

Anyway, just wanted to do a quick update on fiber news. I finished the front of the sweater a bit ago, but I've had to stop progress on it to work on Elaina's scarf. So I have a picture of that too.

Also, (drum roll), Shawn bought me a skein of the Beaded Pearl & Sequin Artyarns. It's so pretty. I think I'm going to have to design something for it. I figure the most I can do with it is knit a couple of rows on a neck line of a sweater, so I'm thinking that a sweater using it as a trim would be the thing to do use it for.

That's about it for this quickie post. I'm headed to Concord guild today, I'll be finishing the turkey soup, and then we may be going to see the new Harry Potter flick.

Stay tuned to this channel for further updates.

Even Better Than The Real Thing

2010-11-26T11:55:00.000-05:00

I didn't post last weekend because I was running around like a crazy woman even though I had Friday and Monday off. I had invited Laura V and Mary Kate R to Thanksgiving at my place, as Shawn was working and they would not be able to spend the day with their families, and my mom has moved to Arizona again. Now, you have to understand that I haven't had company in a while, which means that I really hadn't cleaned much. Because company coming is pretty much the prerequisite for me to instigate a real cleaning. So on Friday morning, after another six month mammogram (which was good news and I can resume a regular annual schedule), getting an oil change, dropping into work to sign stuff, I started the cleaning process, and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. During this cleaning process, I had an unintended milk exposure because I forgot to check to see if Girl Scout Thin Mints had milk in them. Which they do. ARGGH!!!! (Picture me screaming and shaking my fists at the sky.)

On Saturday we went grocery shopping and got that taken care of, and then I went to a meeting of the Misplaced Modifiers at Sally's. It was a good meeting and people had done really good work. My sex scene was not universally ridiculed, so that was good. We got to see Oliver, a.k.a. the law firm (the kiddo has a lot of names and sounds like a law firm--in fact, I'm using his name as the name of the law firm in my novel), who is really beginning to look less like an infant and more like a toddler.   When I got home from the meeting, we cleaned and cleaned.

On Sunday, I cleaned, made cranberry sauce, both diabetic and regular, roasted the garlic for the mashed potatoes, and devised the cooking timetable for the week, and headed off to the Concord Knitting Meetup group. We made a pork loin for dinner, and then we cleaned until about 9:00 p.m, which took care of everything except a few final touches.

As I had Monday off, I got up made the turkey brine (recipe to follow) and vacuumed and mopped the kitchen floor, and ended up dragging out the Hoover stream carpet cleaner and doing the entry way. I will not discuss the results but suffice it say it's amazing how much freaking sand can be in the carpet, even though you just vacuumed it three times before you ran the carpet cleaner.   Then I got cleaned up and headed to Concord to sign stuff at the office. After that I treated myself to lunch at the Golden Bowl, and headed to the Rockingham Mall to visit Bare Escentuals so that I could pick up some makeup as I was out, and then I went to the Used Book Superstore and picked up some quick reads. Note that I had dropped off two garbage bags of donations to the same said Used Book Superstore on Saturday. Sigh.

Tuesday night, I worked on Step 1 of Grandma Jackson's stuffing (recipe to follow) and ran errands for the last minute things. Like a bottle of Watermelon Schnapps for Laura V and I. It sounds awful, but mix it with Sprite, and it tastes just like a Watermelon Jolly Rancher. It's so yummy.

On Wednesday night, I got out the turkey and put it in the brine and out on the balcony, peeled the potatoes, and the butternut squash before Laura V's bus came in. Quick side note: In a previous blog post, I discussed having purchased the Titan peeler as seen on TV because I have an issue with wanting to see if that stuff works. Let me tell you, it made peeling that squash a piece of cake. After picking up Laura, we headed to Taipei Tokyo to get dinner, and then came back to the apartment to finish doing the other prep work. We made the vegan key lime pie (recipe to follow), put a rustic grains bread together in the bread machine, made the spinach dip (recipe previously provided in an early blog post), and made blueberry muffins for breakfast the following morning.

Finally yesterday was Thanksgiving. Laura and I got up early to make the chocolate pecan pie (recipe to follow), bake gram's stuffing, and make roasted vegetable salsa (recipe to follow) in the Showtime Rotisserie, before Mary Kate arrived.  Once Mary Kate arrived, we rinsed the brine off the turkey, stuffed the cavity with a quartered onion, fresh sage leaves and 4-5 garlic cloves, and then we used the solid injector to inject onions, sage and garlic into the turkey breast in three places on each side. We also made roasted garlic mashed potatoes, a pumpkin butternut squash bisque (recipe to follow). Mary Kate brought this roasted vegetable casserole with caramelized onions on the top, which was yummy, and this sparkling wine called New Age that we had tried at a Concord Co-op tasting, which was wonderful. I introduced Mary Kate and Laura V to Beatles Rock Band. There was much laughing, and Kiwi was totally not impressed with our singing skills.

The vegan version of Key Lime pie was surprisingly good, but it didn't really set well. It was very soupy, but we may not have cooked the filling enough. I may try it one more time to see. After we tried a piece of it, we decided to freeze it to see in that helped, which it does. It froze very well, and when I took it out this morning to repackage it, it melted quickly, so I think it could be served frozen to solve the soupy issue.

The turkey for some reason was the best turkey I've ever done. It was incredibly moist and even the breast meat (I'm a dark meat girl myself because I find breast meat dry and icky) was luscious. Not to brag or anything. I think having the probe thermometer really helps you from overcooking it too much.

I have a freaking boat load of leftovers, but at least I won't have too cook for some time.

Menu and Recipes:

Appetizers:

Spinach Dip with Tofu (see previous blog post)
Hummus with Roasted Garlic
Assortment of Pickles
Triscuits
Tortilla Chips

Roasted Vegetable Salsa - As Modified: (all roasting we did in the grill basket in the rotisserie)
1 medium onion, peeled and cut in thirds crosswise, roasted
1 red bell pepper, quartered, seeded, roasted
1 green pepper, quartered, seeded, roasted
2 jalapeno chilies, quartered, seeded, roasted
5-6 cloves garlic, roasted
2 green onions or scallions, chopped
4 large tomatoes, rough chop
Run all of the above through a food processor, leaving pieces in a fine chop. Put mixture in bowl, and add the following:
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of lime juice
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
1/4 tsp ground chipotle pepper
2-3 tsp of Penzey's Salsa Salad Seasoning
3-4 drops of Marie Sharps Habanero Grapefruit Hot Sauce
3-4 drops of Tabasco's Green Jalapeno Hot Sauce
Black Pepper and Lawry's seasoned salt to taste.
Mix well.

Dinner:

Turkey Brine - As Modified from Alton Brown's recipe: (do 2-3 days before cooking turkey)
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon of vegetable stock (we used water and the Better Than Bouillon low sodium vegetable base which is dairy free - regular is not)
1 tablespoon of black peppercorns
1 1/2 teaspoons of allspice berries
1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped candied ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons of sage
1 gallon of heavily iced water
Mix all ingredients except water in a large stockpot over medium high heat, and bring to boil mixing to dissolve sugar and salt. When at a boil remove from heat, bring to room temp, and refrigerate.
The evening before you're cooking the turkey take the bring, put in a pot or container big enough to hold the brine, turkey and the heavily iced water. Mix brine and water, and put turkey in breast down. Refrigerate for 8-16 hours. It says turn the bird once, but I didn't. Rinse brine off before cooking.

Grandma Jackson's Weird Meat Stuffing recipe:
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
onions 2-3 chopped
celery 3-5 stalks chopped
ground pepper to taste
salt to taste
ground sage to taste (I usually end up using probably 2-3 teaspoons)
rubbed sage to taste (I usually end up using 2-3 tablespoons)
1-2 bags of Pepperidge (sp?) Farms breadcrumbs or equivalent
Put ground pork and beef in a stock pot with enough water to cover. Boil the crap out of it until it's completely disintegrated. I've been known to use my stick blender too. Add pepper, salt, onions, celery and rubbed sage. Cook until onions and celery are a bit translucent. Add bread crumbs until you get a nice pudding, doughy consistency, usually between 1 and 1 and 1/3 bags. Mix in ground sage as needed to get the right taste. Put in a bird or put in a loaf pan and bake at 400 for an hour until nice and crispy on top.

Rustic Grains Bread - As Modified (bread machine 1.5 loaf):
1 cup room temperature water
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons of canola oil
1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
3 tablespoons of yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup of Harvest Grains Mixture from King Arthur Flour
2/3 cup of 9 Grain Flour from King Arthur Flour
1 2/3 cups of bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of rapid rising bread machine yeast
Put ingredients in bread machine in order listed. Select Basic cycle, medium crust and 1.5 loaf size, and press start.

Dairy Free Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes:
Yukon Gold peeled potatoes boiled
1/2 cup garlic cloves roasted in olive oil in oven at 350 degrees for an hour

2-3 tablespoons of Earth Balance Vegan margarine
1/4 to 1/2 cup of almond milk.
Mash together.

Dairy Free Pumpkin-Butternut Bisque:
1 tablespoon of Earth Balance Vegan margarine
1 medium leek, white part only sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 15 oz can of unsweetened pumpkin puree
4 cups low sodium chicken or vegetable broth (we used water and chicken Better than Bouillon low sodium)
1 tablespoon of light brown sugar, firmly packed.
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Freshly grated nutmeg - we probably grated a good teaspoon
1 cup of almond milk
slivered almonds as garnish (although we forgot to do this)
In large soup pot, over medium heat, melt margarine, add leek and salt and pepper and saute until leek is soft but not browned. Add squash and stir to coat. Add pumpkin, broth, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and stir well. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer until squash is fork tender. Use a blender or a stick blender to puree soup. Taste for seasoning and top with almonds.

Desserts:

Vegan (Dairy Free) Chocolate Pecan Paradise Pie as Modified:
1 graham cracker crust - you can find dairy free ones at the grocery store or you can make your own.
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup warm vanilla almond milk
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup Earth Balance Vegan margarine at room temp
3 tablespoons of molasses
2 tablespoons of amaretto
2 cups chopped lightly toasted pecans
1 cup Ghiradelli Semi Sweet chocolate chips (no dairy in them)
Preheat oven to 350 F. Put oats in a blender or food processor and blend until very fine but not powdery. Put in bowl with salt and flour and stir. In a separate large bowl, combine almond milk, maple syrup, margarine, molasses, amaretto and whisk until smooth (used stick blender, worked better). Whisk in flour mixture. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips with wooden spoon. Pour into graham cracker crust. Bake for 38-40 minutes. Serve warm and store leftovers in refrigerator. Nuke leftovers a bit in microwave before serving.

Vegan (Dairy Free) Luscious Lime Pie:
1 graham cracker crust
1 1/2 cups firm silken tofu, well drained
1 cup soy cream cheese
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons of finely grated lime peel (used Pampered chef micro grater and it worked well)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Combine tofu and soy cream cheese in food processor or blender until smooth. Combine sugar and cornstarch in small bowl, mix well, and add to tofu mixture, process until smooth scraping down sides as needed. Transfer to sauce pain and cook on medium heat stirring constantly for 5 to 7 minutes until mixture begins to thicken. It should not come to a boil or begin to get lumpy. Pour into a bowl and mix in lime juice, lime peel, and vanilla. Stir constantly until well formed, pour into crust and refrigerate for 8-12 hours before serving.

And that wraps it up for Thanksgiving this year.

Just a shout out to Lora K, I'm thinking of you and I know everything will be okay.

Stay tuned to this channel for further updates.

Isn't it Romantic? (Chet Baker version)

2010-11-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've delayed and procrastinated for probably over a month, but I finally completed my writing exercise for last month's online meeting. And yes, it was massively late, and it's up to my writing group as to whether they still want to critique it, but it had to be done. How can you write a trashy novel if there's no trash in it? The assignment was an exercise from a book on writing fiction as follows:

Write a sex scene where you know the characters well and where the sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it, that only he or she would desire so very much that particular person under those circumstances.

Well, it's written now. I'm not sure it's particular, or peculiar, and I'm certain that it's schlocky and full of cliches, but the first sex scene I've ever written is drafted. I did write it in the novel context using my characters, but it's out of sequence, so now I have to catch up in the novel to the part where this happens. I gained 2,000+ words, but I don't know if I want to count that really until I catch up as substantial revisions may need to be made to connect it up. I need to think about that.

In fiber news, since I fixed the wheel and I had fiber that I had taken out of the closet for the Maine trip, I spun some more this week. The fiber is from Spin-a-bit and I bought it at NH Sheep and Wool this last go round, I think. The picture to the left is the fiber batt as I bought it. There are shiny things in it, which are very pretty. I'm not sure why I'm so into shiny things right now, but that appears to be the case. To the right is a crappy picture of the singles being spun. I took a bunch and this was the best of them sadly. I think it was just too dark in the living room. To the right, bottom, is a picture of the skein of yarn after I plied it. I like it. It's a little more aqua than I normally like, but the purple balances that out I think.

In knitting fiber news, I finished the back of the purple tramline sweater. On Tuesday I was showing some knitting friends the cable cross that I had done incorrectly and one of them spotted another incorrect cross. ARGGHH! And of course, that one was way at the beginning. My options were to intentionally drop a 28 stitch wide cable back and reknit it back up. I thought about it and said no freaking way. My second option was to cut the cable, push it back to the other side to recross the cable correctly and graft it back together on the other side. I have done this before. It can be done. I just didn't want to do it with a 2 st by 2 st cross, as I was concerned there would not be enough yarn to weave in after cutting. My knitting friends said I was being insane and to leave them alone, it was the back of the sweater and nobody would notice. Given that one of them spotted the second incorrect cable, I kinda wasn't buying that. I wondered whether I could duplicate stitch over it to hide the incorrect cross. They still told me I was insane. But I couldn't help it, so I decided to attempt it, even though I had never heard of duplicate stitching in connection with recrossing cables, but hey, it might work. So I duplicated stitched over the incorrect cable cross to make it look stitches were coming over it from the line below. I think I like it better than ignoring it, but I didn't weave in the ends, and I'll take it to guild tomorrow to see what people think.

I've started designing a scarf for Elaina at work out of the autumn colored Manos del Uruguay lace yarn I bought at Stitches. We're headed to Boston today and we're planning to have dinner with Laura V.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Stormy Blues

2010-11-07T21:55:00.000-05:00

Okay the title is deceiving, sort of, but will be explained in due course. This weekend was the annual ManchVegas Knitting Weekend, which we did in Portland, Maine. I much, much preferred this venue to the place in Vermont, especially given my new dietary issues. But I also liked the amenities at the hotel better than the place in Vermont. I'm probably just getting old and getting snobbier.

I managed to convince Shawn to go with me, because I'd been gone the whole previous weekend at Stitches and I thought we could get some time together. So we arrived in Portland on Friday afternoon, and since my aunt Murphy lives there, we got together for dinner that night. Wally and Murph picked us up at the hotel and we went to Thai 9 in Scarborough for dinner. It was good, but I found mine a little salty for Thai. After we got back from dinner, Shawn said hi to the knitters, and escaped to our room to watch TV, and I hung with the knitters and worked on my bottle of Goslings, which is where the stormy comes in. I love dark and stormies, but I was actually drinking rum and diet Pepsi. I worked mostly on the Tramline cable sweater because I didn't feel like hauling my wheel downstairs that night. Gina very kindly made us these lovely favor bags, which had carabiner clips with ManchVegas Knitters on it, a personalized tote bag with the group and trip title and dates on it, candy, a pen and post its. It was very sweet.

There was an incident with Gina involving chocolate and certain portions of her anatomy and a camera, but I have not received permission to post those photos yet. Therefore, I am being discrete, as much as humanly possible for me.

On Saturday, Shawn helped me lug all my junk downstairs, and I spun for most of the morning. I had a gorgeous batt from Grafton Fibers (now Dyak Crafts), and I finished spinning up the singles before we left to visit Tess' Designer Yarns. I've been buying stuff from Tess' Designer Yarns at shows for years, but I had not been able to visit until yesterday. I love, love, love her stuff. But I was good. I was very good. I bought the most inexpensive stuff in the place and I bought small amounts. This does not negate the fact that I was not supposed to buy anything at all, given last weekend's behavior at Stitches East, but still I was good. I bought 5 skeins of Superwash Merino Lace, two in Nightshade, two in Twilight and one on Mendocino Vineyard. (These would be the blues in the post title.)

Melinda, the owner and genius behind, Tess' Designer Yarns, was so kind to us. She gave each of us one of the shop's coffee mugs with a picture of one of the yarn displays on it. Like I need to be tempted every day, looking at it. It was totally evil, but in a good way. I could have spent a heck of a lot more, and there was skein of microfiber ribbon that I almost bought called enchanted forest, which is still calling my name, but I will be strong.

After we got back from Tess' Designer Yarns, I was supposed to show Caroline how I ply from a center pull ball of singles, so of course, my footman connector on the Lendrum decided to self destruct. I had a repair kit, but of course I didn't bring it with me. And it's my own fault really, because the left side broke not all that long ago, and I should have replaced them both at the same time. Because you knew it was going to happen on the other side too, both pieces were the same age. Sigh. Anyway, I fixed the wheel and finished plying the singles when I got home today, which you can see to your right. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the Tramline Cable sweater, and I'm almost ready to bind off for the neck opening.

Shawn and I had planned to do dinner on our own. I wasn't feeling very well at that point, for some reason, so we drove around the area a little bit, and found another Thai place on Western Avenue, called Pom's Thai. We really, really liked it. We found it to have really interesting and authentic things on the menu and we really liked the food. We're definitely planning to go back the next time we're in Portland for anything. I went to bed fairly early because I still wasn't feeling well, but I did have a really good time. I'm not sure Shawn had as good a time, but it was nice to have him there. For a full set of photos, with the exception of those awaiting release from Gina, here's a public link to my facebook album.

And that's all the news this week that's fit to print.